After a sixth-straight road game Friday night in Alabama, Florida is happy to be home.
Although the Gators went 4-2 during their time away from Gainesville, coach Becky Burleigh said the team is ready to finally play in front of a home crowd again.
"Hallelujah," she said.
"We’re really excited to be at home. I think that it’s been a really long time and I know our team will be up for it."
A full week at home also means a full week of practice, something the team has not had because of the busy travel schedule.
With no Sunday game played this past weekend either, Burleigh said she hopes to see the team use the whole week to make improvements.
"I just think there’s a couple things — we’re playing kinda two main systems, and to be able to fine tune those a little bit, it would be really helpful," she said, "and that just takes a little bit of time which we haven’t really had being on the road so much."
Chemistry between players and set pieces were also aspects Burleigh mentioned wanting to work on this week, especially for teams that like to pack in their defenses and make it hard to score.
One such team was Alabama, which Florida defeated Friday night 2-1 for the first time in Tuscaloosa, Ala., since 2008.
The Gators were finally able to crack the Tide’s defense in the 74th minute from a Liz Slattery goal and the 77th minute from a Lauren Silver goal. Slattery’s was her first goal of the season, and for Silver, it was the senior’s first since her freshman year.
"It’s great to get goals from unlikely sources, it’s good for our team for that," Burleigh said.
"But for both of them I think that it’s good to see that the time they’ve put into executing some of the things that they wanted to be better at has paid off."
Florida promptly allowed an Alabama goal in the 78th minute to let the Tide back into the game, but was able to hold on for the victory. Burleigh said she liked how the team was able to win that style of game, one it wasn’t used to playing.
"We did a pretty good job, I think, of keeping possession of the ball, getting our opportunities and getting kind of scrappy goals, which is a little different than we normal score," she said. "So it was kinda good for us to see us be able to score on some set pieces, that’s something we’ve kinda put some emphasis on in practice…"
Although Burleigh was not pleased Florida allowed Alabama to make a goal quickly after Florida scored, she called the mistake "a great learning experience" that can be used to prevent the same thing from happening later on in the season.
The first opportunity to do so will be this weekend when Florida hosts rival Georgia on Friday night. Burleigh said this year’s contest should be tougher than last year’s 5-1 score indicated.
"We know they’re gonna be a handful," Burleigh said, "and I think they’re playing some really, really good soccer right now."
Follow Graham Hack on Twitter @graham_hack24
Lauren Silver kicks the ball during Florida's 2-0 win against South Florida.
