Soccer loses pair of games to start MAC play
Staff Photographer ||
Junior midfielder Kaelyn Korte makes a cut up the field during the Chippewa's loss to Northern Illinois on Friday at the CMU Soccer Complex.
Central Michigan University’s women’s soccer team is staying positive after a pair of hard-fought losses over the weekend.
The Chippewas fell 2-1 to the Northern Illinois Huskies on Friday, and 1-0 to the Western Michigan Broncos, Sunday.
“We can’t really hang our heads on this weekend,” said sophomore midfielder Kaelyn Korte. “We need to try to get better and go at it again next weekend.”
CMU was able to control both games through its passing and possession. The Chippewas completed 74 percent of their passes on Friday, but were unable to find the right passes in the final third of the match.
“I would rather take less ball possession for a goal,” said Head coach Peter McGahey. “Our ball possession broke down in some critical areas where we weren’t clean enough to take another goal.”
CMU was unlucky on offense throughout the entire weekend. Passes were tipped inches away from open players or shots would take a slight deflection away from goal.
While the results were not what the team wanted, McGahey was keen to notice the momentum building performances from each.
“Sometimes, teams finding their identity takes longer than you want,” he said. “You are going to get results like this. The performance today is better than the performance against Oakland. You don’t get the result you want, but the performance is better. If you can keep digging those things out and grinding, I think you are moving in the right direction.”
Moments after Sunday’s game went final, the Chippewas said they are already moving on from the losses.
“These games happened, but it is over,” senior forward Emily Cooksey said. “We take what we can from this game and we leave the rest behind us.”
McGahey pointed to the maturity of his team during the weekend, and the consistency with which they were able to apply pressure on their opponents.
The Chippewas sit at 2-8-1 on the season, a record that surprises team members and coaches alike.
“The challenge the coaching staff and our players have now is to pull the team together,” McGahey said. “We need to get back to the drawing board and find the positive things we are seeing. We also see the areas where we know we need to be better.”
