The Wisconsin women's soccer team (4-2-1) has been practicing various technical details of their game this week in preparation for the Pepperdine Wave (3-2-1) Saturday and Nevada Wolf Pack (0-5-1) Sunday. Wisconsin comes off of a loss and a tie in the previous weekend and focused on protecting the ball in practice.
We worked on a lot of switching the ball and getting into varying attacking opportunities. We did counter attack defending against fast forwards and playing through balls with the midfielders,""freshman Laurie Nosbusch said. ""After Harvard and [Boston University], they had some fast forwards so we wanted to work on defending through balls.""
The Badgers will first face Nevada which is coming off of a very successful weekend last week when they defeated Washington State and No. 23 Tennessee.
The Wave received many national awards by improving their record to .500 and got into the Soccer Buzz Magazine's West Region Top 15 with a 12 ranking.
Pepperdine's freshman goalkeeper Lacey Heck made her first appearance as a starter and had back-to-back shutouts combining for seven saves in her two appearances.
Pepperdine senior Amanda Rupp will be a forward to watch for. She leads the Wave with nine goals and was recently named to the Soccer Buzz Magazine Elite team of the week. Statistically, the Wave improved their game in the second half, going from six to eight shots on goal and nine assists for the year.
Nevada's three goals this season have each been scored by different players.
Three of the Pack's four starting defenders have recorded at least one career point for Nevada including sophomore Erin Smith who has a goal this season. This shows diversity in Nevada's scoring options. Senior Samantha Miller also contributed to scoring for Nevada and has 39 career goals. Nevada has experienced players and returned 15 girls from last season's roster.
This will be the first meeting between Nevada and Wisconsin.
The Badgers have outscored their opponents thus far, 14-7. The Badgers average two goals a game and give up only one per contest. Senior goalkeeper Jamie Klages made 26 saves and had two shutouts in the non-conference match ups.
After this weekend, Wisconsin will have played in nine non-conference games before finally facing their first Big Ten game against Illinois.
""We have been playing teams from all over the country with different styles of play. [Opponents] have been preparing us for the athleticism of the Big Ten,"" Nosbusch said.
The Badgers hope to start off with more energy this weekend and jump on Pepperdine early in the game. If Wisconsin can have an aggressive and energetic start, Nosbusch believes they can keep feeding off that energy by applying more pressure.
Wisconsin plays at home Friday at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday at 11:00 a.m. at the McClimon Soccer Complex.
