The Idaho women’s soccer teams travels to Portland Sunday to face Concordia and Seattle University in a doubleheader.
Vandal head coach Derek Pittman said the team is hoping to rebound following a 1-0 loss to Gonzaga Sunday afternoon.
“We hadn’t played a game since November,” Pittman said. “There were a lot of things that we did well, but there were a lot of things that we were very much out of sync. I think it took us a little while to get into the game and get back to playing the way we are capable of playing.”
Pittman said the team was slow in finding its rhythm early in the matchup.
“There were definitely some errors early on,” Pittman said. “Gonzaga capitalized and scored a great goal. We’ll go back and watch the film and work on training and do what we can to get better for this coming weekend.”
Pittman said the goal of the spring season is to provide players with valuable game experience before the fall.
“We scripted out exactly how many minutes we wanted each player to play and made sure that we gave everybody as much playing time as we possible could,” Pittman said. “From that standpoint, it was extremely beneficial.”
The Idaho head coach said he saw stretches of strong play from both starters and key substitutes in Sunday’s game, most notably from fifth-year senior Elexis Schlossarek.
Pittman said he was also impressed with the early role provided by freshman midfielder Megan Goo.
“She came on and is playing in a bigger role for us coming into the fall,” Pittman said.
The Idaho coach said the team will compete in two 70-minute games over the weekend, instead of the usual 90 minutes required in regulation matches.
“We’ll look at it and try to script out who we want to play in both games, and how we want to adjust our substitutions,” Pittman said. “So that way everybody gets as many minutes as possible.”
Pittman said the team would need to balance playing time among team members while considering fatigue.
Concordia enters the matchup following an 11-4-3 season last fall. The Cavaliers finished with a record of 8-2-2 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference before falling to No. 3 seed Seattle Pacific in the conference championships.
Meanwhile, the Redhawks enter Sunday’s meeting with Idaho after earning a 14-3 record last season. The team went undefeated against Western Athletic Conference opponents but lost to No. 2 seed Utah Valley during the conference tournament.
“It’s a great development opportunity for some of our younger players who maybe didn’t get to see as many minutes during the fall,” Pittman said. “Now they get to step into a live-action game and grow and get better.
Pittman said the team’s focus has shifted from conditioning to the successful completion of offensive and defensive strategies.
“Early on it was about our physical development,” Pittman said. “Right now it’s about our tactical development and continuing to improve upon the pieces that we were successful on.”
The Vandals will kick off at 9:30 a.m. Sunday against Concordia. The team will then face Seattle U later that afternoon at 12:30 p.m.
Josh Grissom can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @GoshJrissom