After a win on the football field last weekend, the women’s soccer team couldn’t keep the momentum going for the Wildcats who traveled to Louisville for a match last night. The Cardinals who are ranked 18th, defeated the Wildcats 2-0 in 1:54. Syndey Hiance, the SEC Defensive Player of the Week two weeks ago, had ten saves while given up 2 goals.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Coach Lipsitz understood the importance of the game and had a tough decision to make. He had this to say on Wednesday:
“I had a difficult decision to make early in the week,” Lipsitz said. “With a young team, do you shy away from really explaining what kind of a rivalry this is and how big it is? Or do you tell them and risk them getting tight and nervous. Having been some one that grew up in Chapel Hill with the Carolina-Duke rivalry and coached at Ohio State with the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, one thing I learned is you can try to downplay it, but everybody knows that’s not true. And so I made a decision to be very clear; this is a huge rivalry and that’s the fun part. And we’re not going to be nervous, we’re going to be excited; this is why we love athletics. And I want my players to be excited about the opportunity to play a great game and a big rivalry rather than be nervous about it.
“This is part of what makes athletics so exciting. One of the things about sports is the number of people it interests and who follows it. What you have to understand is that in women’s soccer, while it’s our team versus their team, it’s about a lot more than that in rivalries. It’s about keeping track of who’s ahead in the series from year-to-year by sport; it’s about people on different sides of the state arguing; it’s about pride. That’s the fun part of rivalries. There’s no negativity between our staffs, we deeply respect the Louisville staff, they’re tremendous coaches and I know they’ll be ready. This is not a negative rivalry between our teams, but we know that’s not always true between the schools in general and we get that and that’s what makes athletics fun.”
The Wildcats next match is against Marshall at 5:00pm as they begin a 5 match home streak in Lexington.
