Newsfeed
Printer-Friendly ModeInconsistent start doesn’t have Cardinals in panic mode
MEN'S SOCCER
September 21, 2009 —
The Cardinals plans of getting off to a hot start before a six-game midseason home stand haven’t gone the way they had hoped.
With a 2-1 loss to Taylor University and a 3-0 setback to Tiffin last week, the Cardinals record dropped to 1-4-2 overall. Despite the losing record, junior forward Adam Julien thinks that it’s too early to panic.
“We just need to put a complete game together,” Julien said. “We haven’t really been able to do that yet this season. As long as we stay upbeat and confident, we will be just fine.”
With the six-game home stand beginning Sunday against GLIAC foe Ashland University, Julien believes the Cardinals can turn their season around with some wins at home.
“It’s definitely nice to be able to play some big games in front of our fans. We haven’t got to play too many games at home yet, so it is something that we’ve been looking forward to. It’s a stretch of the schedule that we need to find a way to take advantage of,” Julien said.
The Cardinals GLIAC record currently sits at 0-1-1, although with so many conference games coming up, that record could change in a hurry. Conference opponents Tiffin and Findlay are part of an upcoming home stand. “Even though we haven’t started off the way that we wanted to this year, we can right the ship with some wins against our conference opponents,” Julien said.
In their first game of the week against Taylor University, Taylor took a two-goal lead before the Cardinals would add a goal. That was all they could manage. Offense has been a problem for most of the season for the Cardinals, although they out shot Taylor 20-7.
“We just couldn’t get the ball behind their goaltender. He played a good game. We weren’t able to capitalize on some of our chances and that was the difference in the game.” Julien said.
The Cardinals then traveled to Tiffin to take on the Dragons. Tiffin became the third team to shut out the Cardinals’ offense this season. The Dragons scored two goals within 10 minutes of each other in the first half before adding a meaningless goal in the second half.
With so many road games at the beginning of the season, the home stand is something that the Cardinals look forward to.
“If we can get off to a better start in some of our games, we can get right back in the running for a conference championship,” said Julien. “If we can get the offense rolling, we can be a dangerous team.”