After a quick one-game road trip to Chicago, the UW women’s soccer team returns to the McClimon Soccer Complex Sunday to battle with in-state rival UW-Milwaukee. The Badgers (3-1-1) will face a Milwaukee squad that is winless on the young season yet tied with Vanderbilt in its most recent match. Vanderbilt handed the Badgers their first loss of the season this past Friday in UW’s home opener.

It has been a promising start to the season for the Badgers, who already have wins against Pac-12 teams Oregon and Oregon St. as well as a victory over Connecticut. However, sophomore midfielder McKenna Meuer knows the team needs to keep pushing themselves to continue their success.

“Overall, we’re happy with how we started,” Meuer said. “This season we set a standard for ourselves that we don’t want to lose a lot of games. I think we’re happy, but we know there are a lot of things we need to improve on to be successful.”

After allowing only one goal in each of their previous three games, the Badgers gave up a season high four goals against Vanderbilt. Junior defenseman Alexandra Heller wants to see a positive rebound this week with two games on the schedule.

“We kind of had a bad game last Friday against Vanderbilt,” Heller said. “I think we’re just going to try and pick it up this week against Loyola and Milwaukee. Coach [Paula Wilkins] has really been stressing our team defending together. I think that’s going to be a really big part of us winning this weekend. Also, the details she’s always trying to remind us to make cleaner.”

The game against Milwaukee will be the second of three games against other schools in Wisconsin.  The Badgers already beat Marquette 5-1 in an exhibition game earlier in the season and will play UW-Green Bay just three days after Milwaukee. The Badgers have split their last two matchups with the Panthers, both in Milwaukee. Wisconsin won last season in overtime by a score of 2-1 but lost in 2011 with another overtime game, 2-1.

The Badgers are very familiar with their in-state foe and realize it will be a tough contest. Meuer knows games against in-state rivals always bring another aspect to the pitch.

“I think there’s always another aspect that’s added into playing two teams from the same state,” Meuer said. “We not only want to beat the rest of the country, but you especially want to be the best team in your state. Our game against Milwaukee is always a hard game. They always come out playing good soccer, so we’re hoping to come out and show that we’re the top team in the state.”

Heller knows the team’s goals are simple when it comes to playing teams from within the state.

“We’re always trying to beat other Wisconsin teams. We want to be the best in the state,” Heller said.

It has been a tough schedule for the Panthers as their game against Wisconsin will be their fourth against Big Ten teams. Their other four games have come against Miami, Fla., DePaul, Vanderbilt and Miami, Ohio. Wisconsin will look to attack Milwaukee early with leading goal scorer, junior forward Cara Walls, and sophomore midfielder Kinley McNicoll, whose nine points are good for second on the team.

The Badgers see every nonconference game as important to prepare them toward conference play and a win Sunday would mean a lot to them with Big Ten play beginning in just a week.

“A win Sunday would be a huge step in putting us in a good position as we look to NCAAs, hopefully, at the end of the season,” Meuer said. “It would show that the game against Vanderbilt that we lost wasn’t the way we play soccer and that’s not how we want Wisconsin to be represented.”

If past years have indicated anything to these two teams, it’s that both should be in for a hard fought battle among in-state foes.