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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SOCCER MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 29, 2014Paula WilkinsCOACH WILKINS: Great time of the year. We're getting through the middle of the thick of the Big Ten season. Really happy to get two wins against Indiana and Purdue. Always been a challenging place for us to play. Also, it's very exciting that we had goals scored from different people. We're getting different scoring opportunities by other people on this team, with McKenna Meuer and Molly Laufenberg this weekend. And also great to get Cara Walls back on the field against Purdue. So especially since we're getting through the thick of the Big Ten season, I think it's important to get her back in, playing and healthy again. I'm excited about that. And one thing I'd really like to say at this press conference I thought Purdue was a very class act. One of our players Alexis Tye's mother is dealing with some health issues. And we have a D strong going on right now to send her some positive energy. And they did something before the game which was really classy. And I'd like to thank Purdue's soccer team for doing that. I thought it was really important. Because no matter on the field or off the field, we still are supportive of each other in the soccer community. I'd like to thank Purdue for that. Q. A lot of success this season with the team. Have you found that you've had issues keeping the group focussed, or has it been the leadership has helped keep the group together so far? COACH WILKINS: I thought Friday we took a little step back from what we were trying to do. I used the analogy that when you set up in January, you want to lose weight, you get your‑‑ into all the details, all the details are working. You go to the gym every day and diet is great. And about a month into it you're starting to cheat a little bit more. We talked about it on Sunday, we need to come back to doing the details right. We can't cheat on our diet. So I thought they did a much better job on Sunday and again we'll take another step on Friday against Ohio State. It's going to be great to be home. This is a physical stretch for us. We play Ohio State on Friday, Penn State on Sunday, and again Iowa, who is a good team, on Wednesday. So we've really talked about having to do all those things right to be successful in these three games. And these are pivotal games for us in the Big Ten. Q. Genevieve Richard, your goal keeper, was named Big Ten Co‑Defensive Player of the Week last week. What's been working for her this season. Already has six shutouts, 10 on 1 in the year? COACH WILKINS: Great thing about is Gen is her experience. I think when you have an experienced goalkeeper she makes some of the hard things look simple. I think her communication with the back four is great. So it makes all the little things that sometimes younger goalkeepers make mistakes on, she makes simple. Like there's back passes that are taken care of to eliminate some of the problems of the other team. The other part is you have to give a lot of credit to the back four. We talked about when one of our players is named either offensive or defensive player, that they all deserve that award, because if they don't do the little things clearing the ball off the line that no one sees Gen doesn't get that award. It's been a team effort defensively. They've bought into what we've asked them to do. And hopefully they'll continue that way. Q. What does it mean getting Cara back? What does she bring to this club? COACH WILKINS: You know, what she brings on the field is she's able to hold balls up, and she was on a scoring streak before. So I think it's still going to be a couple games before she plays back into where she was. But anytime you have a senior on the field that can score goals, it gives confidence to the people around her. She holds possession of the ball better than any other player we have right now. It takes away from no other player on the team. But it's something she's been able to develop over the past couple of years, allows us to hold possession higher up to allow Kodee and Kinley and Rose to join the attack. So excited about getting her back in there. But she just adds a different dimension to the field. And I'm excited as a coach. I think anytime you get to see that players scored seven goals in her first seven games, come back, it's a fun time. Q. I'm sure you've to some degree moved past the history with Penn State with you, but still every time they come up on the schedule seems to be a big game and record‑wise it would appear that's again the case. What are you looking for as far as that being a measure stick at this point in the season for your team this year? COACH WILKINS: I always think that's a trap question for a coach because Ohio State is very important. Ohio State has actually beat Duke this year, who is a very good team. So we're definitely going to focus on that. From my personal perspective, you know the Big Ten championship can't be won if we don't take care of Friday. So that would be our first focus for sure. It will also be a good test. Anytime you play a good team like Ohio State or Penn State, it shows you what your team needs to work on or what they're good at. And I think every time we come out of one of these games, whether we're playing Indiana, Purdue, we have to sit back and say okay what do we need to do to get better, because it's not always about that game but also two games the way we need to get better at. So that's going to be our focus. For me it's just focusing on Friday, or Saturday morning we'll start talking about Penn State. Q. The last couple of times you've been in here, you've talked about some difficult losses. Last‑second losses. You talked about 1‑0 wins. Does it make you appreciate the smallness of the margin for error that this league has, is it unique this year? COACH WILKINS: It's really unique this year. Nebraska beat Maryland in double overtime yesterday. And I think Illinois lost to Penn State 2 to 1. Minnesota beat Indiana in double overtime. So it really can go either way. If I'm being honest, Purdue had some good chances in the game that it could have fallen either way for us. So we've talked to the players about how important it is to talk about little details and how that's going to be‑‑ we talked about being desperate, disciplined but desperate when they need to be. And I think that's something that this group has really kind of grabbed hold of because of the losses last year. And also the loss this year to Michigan. We thought that was a detail we didn't take care of. And that's how minute the differences are in wins and losses in the Big Ten right now. Q. I was going to ask you about last year because you were in a similar situation. So that's something they can draw from, learn from, right? COACH WILKINS: We talked about it all last spring. And it's been great to see the leadership kind of step up in that way, talking about being resilient in certain circumstances, that if you go down a hole you don't think negative thoughts, think positive thoughts. And there's a different belief with these guys right now, which is pretty amazing. We were just talking about it. They said Michigan won against Michigan State in the last 30seconds and they beat us in the last second. After a while you start to build a certain belief that you're going to be okay in what you do. I think when you're on the opposite side of it like last year you start to have a belief you're not going to do it. So we've just talked about we've got to keep that frame of mind, and win the moments in the game when we need to. And that's really what soccer is, the moment. Q. You've been here for a few years now, what's the biggest difference from the last few years to this year getting off to one of the best starts in program history? COACH WILKINS: Having good senior leadership. I think that's one. And actually that's a mistake on my part, it's not just senior leadership. I believe that a lot of other players have stepped up in different roles to do things. We've asked some players to play different roles on the team and they've bought into that right away. I think having an experienced back line helps because we're not giving up as many goals. But also having the ability to have different people score, having McKenna Meuer, Cara, Kodee, Marisa Kresge, having all these guys adding goals, it makes our team more multi‑dimensional than it has been in the past. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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