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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SOCCER MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 30, 2013John TraskCOACH TRASK: It's been a good spell up until now. We've been on the road for the last five games, to start the season 5‑2‑1. I'm pretty pleased with the body of work. Obviously the last two games have not gone the way we'd like to have them go. Giving up five goals to a pretty good Gonzaga team. Then starting our Big Ten season on the road against Penn State, losing 3‑1 yesterday, so I'm a little tired. We didn't get in till about 2:00 o'clock. Flew into O'Hare, and our flight was delayed. So looking forward to this week. A very good battle‑tested, Marquette team comes to town on Wednesday night. Should be a fantastic game for the fans. They've been in the NCAA Tournament, they were a top 10 team last year. Took them to overtime at their place, and hopefully we can turn the tide at home this year. Then three more home games, Drake coming up, Indiana, Western Illinois. So it's exciting for our guys to be back home. We are going to be 7 of our next 10, 7 of our next last ten games at home at McClimon, so great opportunity for the community and supporters of men's soccer to come on out and watch us play. Q. As far as the in‑state game Wednesday night, how big are those for your kids, and how would you rank the ones that you have on your schedule with the other three schools in the State? COACH TRASK: Well, I think there's a lot of pride of the Wisconsin schools. Marquette has had a very good couple of years here. As I said, we took them to overtime last year. It's going to be a battle. All of our kids know their kids. It's a rivalry game. It's usually a pretty physical contest, and it's usually decided by one or two plays. Those are the games that make you better. This is a non‑conference game that will help us RPI‑wise. It will continue to toughen us up for the Big Ten part of our schedule. We've got a lot of Chicago kids and Wisconsin kids. They've got a lot of Chicago kids and Wisconsin kids. So it sets up as an intense rivalry. A lot of their kids may have considered us as well as some of our players may have considered going to Marquette as well. So it's‑‑ call it the I‑94 battle, but there is a lot at stake in this game. There is a lot of flavor to it. Q. When you have travel issues and here comes the game Wednesday, how tough is that on you, how tough is that on kids? COACH TRASK: Fortunately, I don't have to play. We just get after it as coaches. I was up watching film this morning. Hopefully our guys get a little bit of rest and they're great in terms of being able to turnaround and being young and get back into class and all the rest of it. We'll do a short session today, try to get some recovery into them. Wednesday we'll be back at it, and that is the nature of the beast in men's soccer, especially at this time of year. We play usually Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, so it's three competitive matches in a week. Training changes quite a bit. It's much more functional, and taking them over and film work at this point and putting in hard work. As the other coaches mentioned, midterms are coming, papers are coming, and we're very proud of our team's GPA. We're the highest team GPA on the men's side in the spring. I've got a lot of very dedicated students. They were studying again after the loss last night in the airports. So, you know, that's all part and parcel of being a student‑athlete at UW and part of the men's soccer program here. Q. Was the Penn State loss an eye‑opener for your kids, do you think, and knowing Indiana comes up next on the Big Ten portion of the schedule? Is there a lot of work to be done between now and then? COACH TRASK: Definitely. It's disappointing in the sense that we were right there into the 77th minute, 13 minutes left in the game in regulation, gave up a goal that we needed some guys to step up and make a play. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. It was an own goal. Those things do happen. We had some good chances to go up 2‑1 in the match, but getting points on the road in the Big Ten, you know, the old you win at home and get a result if you can on the road. So, yeah, any time you don't take at least a point, and I think in fairness to our guys, I think they'd be disappointed with maybe not being up in the game and seeing if they could have held on to get three points out of that game. There is never an easy game. There are seven men's teams so we have six conference games. The league is very tight, hotly contested every match. I can't remember the last time someone went unscathed in conference. It's been a long time, whether it's ties or losses. So we're well in it. We've talked about how many points it may take to win the league. Unfortunately, we're at 0 after game 1. So we've got five matches to put some results together. Q. You've had a number of guys step up, one of them being Nick Janus who has been more consistent lately. What's he provide for your team and what has he given you in these last five matches? COACH TRASK: The whole attacking group, if we look at it, we're eight games in. We have 16 goals. Last year we only scored 21 total in 19 games. So a lot of guys are chipping in. Nick has five now in eight games. Yesterday I know was a special one. He had a significant loss in his family over the weekend, so he'll be leaving us on Thursday to go to a funeral service. But it was a great, kind of single‑man effort to get a goal yesterday and get us back in the game. We were down 1‑0. Nick is a leader on the team. He's a senior. We've used him in a lot of places over the course of his career, but he looks like he's the guy who in a tight game can find that moment to put the ball over the net. If we can couple that up with a little more timely defending and continue to have some other guys. I thought Jacob Brindle was very good yesterday. Didn't get a goal for himself, but had a lot of positive things go on in the game. We'll try to build off of Nick and some of those other guys in the attacking group. Got to be a little bit better in front of goal. Q. After having played so many games on the road now. Coming back home has to be comforting, but to be able to play these teams like Marquette, Indiana and Drake at home has to be a little more of a nicer environment and a nicer view for you after that tough road slate? COACH TRASK: It's huge. This year was probably a little more difficult on the road in the sense that our first Big Ten game was Penn State, which is never easy to get to multiple destinations on your flights. The trip we had to Florida we played two games that were delayed by lightning, two and a half hours apiece. So they didn't even kickoff until after 10:00 at night. And you say does that favor the more mature team, which we felt we were in both of those matches. I think it favors the home team. They're sitting in their home locker room where they live every day, and we're sitting in a hotel lobby. I think that's what people around the country see the body of work being 5‑2‑1 in some difficult situations. The way the schedule is set up. Now we're home for 7 of 10. We're undefeated at home, and hopefully we'll continue that. It is a swing‑‑ I call it a swing year for us. Michigan State away is a very difficult game as well as Indiana down at Bloomington, historically, having those two games at home, but they're excellent programs and they're going to come in here looking to beat us. But I like our chances at home a little bit more than away in those big games. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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