Striking success: Soccer can lock up MAC regular season title Friday

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A target is getting bigger on the soccer team’s back with every win and every shutout.

Instead of worrying about when its shutout streak — now at 1,027 minutes and 26 seconds — will end or who it is playing Sunday or next week, CMU’s focus is on what it can do today to improve for its next game.

That next game, at 4 p.m. Friday at the CMU Soccer Complex against Bowling Green, the team has a chance to clinch the regular-season Mid-American Conference Championship.
Despite that pressure, the focus remains the same.

“(We know) that we have a target on our back and that each game is going to get harder,” said senior forward Amanda Waugh. “We have to be able to come out ready for teams that will be high-pressuring and really aggressive. Even this weekend, we struggled with physical play.

“We have to be ready to play physical.”

Improvement

Waugh said this mentality helped the Chippewas to their best start in school history at 13-3 and 8-0 in the MAC.

Coach Tom Anagnost said he saw this mentality, dating back to the end of last season, when his players became more focused on the daily regiment, has paid dividends to a lot of his players.

“The biggest difference this year, I think, is the preparation,” he said. “We prepare daily very well, and that is the biggest factor. Not just talking this fall, (but) talking about the end of last season as well. It is that mentality.”

Anagnost said the effort the players put forth in the offseason is now paying off on the field, and the coaching staff can see the improvement.

One of the players who made a big improvement over last year is sophomore Chelsi Abbott.

Abbott played in 13 games last season. After coming off the bench for the first eight games this year, she moved into the starting lineup since MAC play began Sept. 25 against Ohio.

Abbott has scored the game-winner in the team’s last three games and has two assists during the MAC schedule.

“I think she is a lot more confident, for one,” Anagnost said. “She understands the game and is a lot more comfortable. Chelsi worked harder from last year to this year than her freshman year and she has seen the results.”

Senior midfielder Stephanie Martin gives a lot of credit to the coaching staff of Anagnost, Neil Stafford, Ashleigh Carter and Ken McDonald for getting the team to focus on its next game and not to think about the records the team is setting this season.

“Our coaches help us a lot,” she said. “They keep us focused on the day ahead. We are only focused on Friday’s game. We don’t really think about Sunday’s game or the big picture.”

Support for the team

With as good as the team is playing, Anagnost said one of the biggest things he wants to see is more people seeing the Chippewas.

With two home games left in the regular season and the team looking to have at least one home game during the MAC Tournament, Anagnost said having the stands packed would give his team a huge advantage.

“It would mean the world to everybody,” he said, “We have a very good product and great people on the team that are playing very well, and we are hopeful that we will have a lot more of the student body out there. It would be big-time for the program.”