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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SOCCER MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 21, 2015

Paula Wilkins

Madison, Wisconsin

THE MODERATOR: Women's Soccer Head Coach Paula Wilkins is here, and we will have opening comments and take questions.

COACH WILKINS: Thank you very much. I'm happy to get the team home, we have been on the road for two weeks and our travel has been extensive, so it's going to be nice to get back onto McClimon, and especially share "PAC the MAC", being at home with that great support, and we're looking forward to that. After this past weekend, the games against Indiana and Purdue are going to be crucial for us in terms of getting points.

Obviously didn't have a great start against Penn State. I think the score was not indicative to what the game presented, and then obviously I told the players after the Ohio State game it was a moral victory to get a shut out because we didn't give up a bunch of goals, but we are looking for the answer on how we're going to score some goals, and that is going to be the focus for us this week, moving to the Big Ten and looking to go get points, because it's going to be competitive every single game. I'm looking forward to the challenge with the team, and that's going to be our focus this week.

Q. Paula with the road stretch that you are coming off of and the overtime games that you've had, you've already played four double over time games, five overtime games in total, what have you learned about this team, and they way they have battled through those? They haven't lost in any of those overtime games; you're undefeated in your last eleven, so what have you learned about this younger team?
COACH WILKINS: I think they have resilience, which is great. I always tell them overtime is about the "gut check" time period. I think the one thing lacking is the person who steps up in that time period and finishes it off or even in regulation. I think moving forward we're going to have to have key players step into roles and do some things for us to be successful this year, and I'm quite excited about it because I think we have the tools to do that. We're still working on getting the best situation possible to have that happen.

Q. Eleven freshmen on the team, awfully young. When you don't get a win for a couple of weeks, what do you could to make sure they keep their head up, and don't hang their heads?
COACH WILKINS: Well, the biggest things we have talked about is talking about how we have been good in spurts in games and not consistent and the consistency is going to be a big part and the biggest thing is -- and I've said this before it's about the process. I think sometimes when you don't get the results you look at the results and you start to become negative in your head and for us we go back to the process, even simple things about crossing and finishing that we need to do better so we focus them on the process and doing the little things right that we can.

One thing that we need to do better in the last two games we had 23 corners, which might be a record for us, and we need to capitalize on those, so going through the process and doing things right will be important, and I believe if you do the process right then the results will come.

Q. So do you shuffle your -- what do you to do to try to generate -- you're getting shots, corners shots, like you said, so how do you find the back of the net?
COACH WILKINS: I think you're right. We're looking for different line-ups, we were giving up goals at the beginning of the year, and we had to move McKenna back to center mid, and that's made a difference, and I think that Kylie Schwarz and Brianna Stelzer have stepped up there, so we solidified a little bit of the defensive stuff, not so much in the Penn State game, but that was for different reasons. I think right now, getting Victoria Pickett worked into our system, she has only been here for a couple of games, I think that's going to be important, and talking about the consistency. Some of the details have flipped a little bit, and for me, a team with key players coming back has been disappointing, so I've refocused them and gotten to the details, and I think you're right we have tried different combinations with different people.

Some of the problems is we have lacked being able to train the group together because of injuries, and that's hurt our training, but as a coach I don't want to make excuses. We have to be in the best position possible so we will keep moving them around to figure out what the best combination is going to be.

Q. One of the bright spots this year has been Rose Lavelle. Where does she rank in the echelon of players you've coached? You've coached a lot of great players in your time, where does Rose ranked in that regard? A lot of people consider her arguably the best player in the country.
COACH WILKINS: For me, she is one of the best players I have coached, and I have coached some of the best players who have played in the World Cup, with Ali Krieger and Erin McLeod and Carmelina Moscato, and her skills are completely different than theirs, and she is actually fun to coach. We have seen her evolve a little bit, and she has been hampered with injuries, but if you come to watch Rose play you understand she can take over a game, and teaching her that and making her consistent is an important part to that.

We've got to ask more of her when we can, and we've got to get her as healthy as we possibly can, because she is one of the best center midfielders in the country, and she will probably impact our national team at one point.

Q. You've been around for a decade, seen a lot of teams come through here. Preseason you probably looked at your team and you knew what you had and didn't have in terms of strength and weaknesses, obviously they have struggled to score goals but you also probably saw potential. What do you think the potential is for this team on October 28th, by the end of year?
COACH WILKINS: I think that's great and it goes back to the question that you had before, it's their consistency. I think that's going to come down to leadership. I always am under the impression that when you have seniors who the game is on the line, they're going to start doing things right because they won't want the end of their career to come. I think that's part of the leadership part. We have the parts.

As a coach, my job is to make them maximize their potential, and I don't think they're at their maximum potential, so I take a little bit of a responsibility for that, but I'm going to call on our key players to raise the standard.

It's in training, also, and I talked to the players after the game, part of this is your preparation. I think Joe Paterno once said, "It's the will to prepare, not just the will to win." And I think that's going back, and I think taking a step back and going through the process again is to be important because there are parts here that are absolutely special.

THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Paula? All right, thanks, Paula.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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