UW (9-9-1, 1-4-1 Big Ten) will face Valparaiso (2-12-2, 1-4-0 MCC) at Reddan Park in Verona Saturday for the teams’ last match of the season before the Big Ten tournament. UW is coming off a tie with Northwestern, and Valpo is coming in on a four-match losing streak having been out-scored 10-0 in the process.
Despite the Crusaders’ record, UW head coach Jeff Rohrman does not want the Badgers to look past Saturday’s matchup.
“[Valparaiso] is struggling a bit. But they’re going to be another one of those teams that if we overlook, it could bite us,” Rohrman said. “So, we’ve got to come out and commit to playing the brand of soccer and style of soccer that we’re capable of.”
UW assistant coach Nick Pasquarello says the team will be working on its offensive attack this week in preparation for Saturday’s match.
“I think in terms of preparing for a team like Valparaiso, what we want to do is just continue to work on what we’ve been doing all year long in terms of some good team defending,” Pasquarello said.
“And then what we’d really like to focus on this week is just a little bit more inspiration, a little bit more creativity in our attack — being able to combine with our midfielders and our forwards to get a little more out of those guys. So we can put a couple goals away on Valparaiso. They’re a team that if you can score early on, that will open it up and we’ll be able to get a little bit more success.”
After going through the end of August and all of September without the team’s elusive first win, Valpo was finally able to put the first tally in the win column Oct. 5, after a 3-2 win over Centenary. A week later, the Crusaders tallied their second win after posting a 2-0 victory over Drury. The team’s hopes of turning things around have been put on hold, however, as it is still looking for its third win.
Much to Valpo’s credit, though, the team was able to battle Ohio State through two overtimes and ended its matchup against the Buckeyes with a 0-0 tie. More recently, it lost 1-0 to IUPUI Oct. 19, a team UW handled 5-0 a month prior to Valpo’s loss.
Last year the Crusaders earned a 2-1 victory over UW, giving the Badgers their first loss of the season after a 4-0 start.
Junior goalie and co-captain Eric Hanson is looking forward to Saturday’s match.
“[Valparaiso] is going to be a good team. They beat us last year,” Hanson said. “I think we’re a better team than they are … but it’ll be a good game.”
Due to his impressive performance last weekend, Hanson earned Big Ten defensive player of the week for the second time this year. He was co-defensive player of the week after having nine saves and posting a double-overtime shutout against Northwestern this past Sunday.
Hanson enjoyed receiving Big Ten player of the week for the third time in his career, and when asked about the honor he simply said, “It feels good.”
UW will be looking to return to its mid-season form as it prepares for a strong finish to the regular season.
“I thought at Northwestern, defensively I was pretty pleased,” Rohrman said. “I thought Eric Hanson had a great day. I thought our backs had a great day. But we struggled at timing and establishing some rhythm and some continuity in our attack. And that’s something we’ve gotten away from in the last week or two. And we kind of found it mid-season, and now for whatever reason we’ve kind of lost it. A couple guys have been out of form or whatever. But we’ve got to all bring a little bit more in that area, and then we should be able to walk away with a good win.”
