The UW women's soccer team won its 300th career game as they beat Iowa 1-0 Sunday afternoon. This moved the Badgers to 4-3-2 overall and 1-1-0 in the Big Ten this season, making up for Friday's 4-2 loss to Illinois.
After a hard-fought, scoreless first half, the Badgers capitalized on an opportunity in the 73rd minute against Iowa, when senior forward Allison Preiss received sophomore Elise Weber's corner kick and muscled past a Hawkeye defender to score her first goal of the season.
Friday's loss to the 19th-ranked Fighting Illini presented many challenges. The Badgers had trouble tracking defenders and were visibly outplayed in the second half.
Head coach Dean Duerst said he was very impressed with the way his players were able to build upon their mistakes in Friday's loss.
""I think we had a lot more confidence in ourselves today,"" Duerst said of Sunday's performance. ""A lot of these games are extremely close so it's important to capitalize in little moments. We played more as a team today as opposed to Friday when I felt we weren't playing within a unit.""
""Today's win was also about what we did with our possessions,"" he continued. ""In the second half, we were a lot more urgent in our attack, and our hustle got us some good opportunities. The whole game we hung tough, one of our defenders made an excellent stop when our goalie was drawn out by an attacker.""
The Badgers' urgent attack earned them an 11-3 lead in shots attempted. Wisconsin was also solid on defense as junior goalie Lynn Murray recorded her second shutout in three appearances for UW. Nonetheless, Duerst still feels the Badgers have plenty of work to do before reaching their full potential.
""We need to bring better consistency to our overall defense,"" Duerst said. ""I've still seen our defense get exposed in different aspects of the game. We need to continue to bring extra effort on offense and hopefully that will help us squeak the ball past an extra defender when we need it most.""
Still, the Badgers' 300th win was good in the sense of its importance in Big Ten play for the rest of the season.
""Getting our first Big Ten win of the season really helps take some of that weight off the shoulders and puts us in a good position for the rest of the conference season,"" Duerst said. ""We now have some momentum heading into the rest of the schedule and I feel that with a little more work, we should be a tough team.""
The Badgers play two games on the road next week, with matchups against Big Ten rivals Ohio State and Minnesota.
