After Sunday’s tough loss to Ohio State in overtime, the Gators will have a chance to get a pair of wins against teams from their home state.
The No. 14 UF soccer team concludes its three-game road trip tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Coral Gables against the Miami Hurricanes (0-1-0) and round out the weekend with its home opener against No. 1 Florida State (2-0-0).
Following the loss to the Buckeyes, coach Becky Burleigh said the team isn’t focused on the loss but what they can learn and take away from the game.
“Well I think that there are different people learning different things,” Burleigh said. “As a team, I think we have to eliminate distractions and be more focused.”
The Gators (1-1-0) know that as a team with as much youth as they have, success won’t be immediate, but junior midfielder Liz Slattery thinks the team has already learned a lot from its first two matches.
“When you have as much talent in the younger years and honestly in the older years too we’re going to peak when we need to peak,” Slattery said. “I think that as the progression continues and we keep moving from game to game, as long as each person each time tries to bring the best version of themselves, and by that, we create the best version of the team and each game that grows and grows, I think that we’re going to kill it.”
Florida has true 15 freshmen on this year’s roster, and as they continue their season-opening road trip the team is trying not to let outside pressure affect their game.
“I think it’s trying not to feel like we’re under too much pressure to perform. I mean we had a really good ranking at the beginning of the season, and I feel like it’s hard not to focus on outside pressures coming in on everyone, especially these freshmen,” Slattery said.
“We have all this pressure from outside forces coming in on us, and I think it’s hard to block all that out and focus on the people to the right and the left of you and focus on what you have to do for the task at hand.”
The Gators have already seen some things in their first two games that they can implement as the season progresses.
“I think we saw a lot of good things. Definitely things we can work on and improve on, but I think our intensity especially coming out against UCF, a really physical team, coming out as strong as we did, getting that first one is really big for us,” junior forward Savannah Jordan said. “I think also we learned how it is to travel. I know for the upperclassmen we know that, but for the freshmen it was good to get two games on the road.”
Jordan scored her 42nd career goal in the team’s 2-0 victory against UCF on Friday night. Jordan, a two-time All-American and the 2013 Southeastern Conference Offensive Player of the Year, has already seen double teams this season as opponents are defending against her scoring abilities.
“Yeah I’ve seen that a little already just by playing UCF,” Jordan said. “I think our team kind of adjusted well to that.”
Jordan and the Gators aren’t going to dwell on their early season loss but think it is better that a loss came earlier instead of later.
“I think it will just boost us up even more,” Jordan said. “Kind of light a fire under us. For us, it kind of gave us like a wake up call. … and because we do have a lot of new freshmen on our team I think that getting that wake up call early on is really great for us. So going into this weekend, we know we have another two tough games and we’re going into it ready.”
Follow Ryan Summers on Twitter @RyanSummers18
UF midfielder Liz Slattery dribbles during Florida's 2-1 win against Troy in an exhibition match on Aug. 11, 2015, at the soccer practice field at Donald R. Dizney Stadium.
