STARKVILLE — It’s time to get offensive.
Judging from the Mississippi State University women’s soccer team’s latest showing, that objective appears to be attainable. On Saturday, MSU reached double digits in goals in a 70-minute intrasquad scrimmage in Tupelo. Coach Neil MacDonald said the final score, which was “something like 9-6” came on a bigger field and featured nine field players vs. nine field players. Still, MacDonald, who will kick off his ninth season as head coach at 7 p.m. Friday when MSU plays host to Southeastern Louisiana, liked what he saw and hopes it will carry over to the regular season.
“We saw a lot of good things offensively, which is what we have been working on since we got in,” MacDonald said. “We have really focused on keeping the ball, switching it, being organized as we going forward, and trying to be creative, so we’re real happy with what we saw up in Tupelo.”
MacDonald also said the scrimmage showed the team it needed to work on picking up midfield runners. He said the back three on defense on each side looked strong, and that he saw plenty of players make impressions in one-vs.-one situations.
“When you’re matched up like that, you see very quickly who the stronger players are, who are reading the game that little bit better, and seeing things a little bit faster,” MacDonald said. “It is going to help us make a lot of decisions going into Friday night about who is going to be in the starting lineup.”
MSU is coming off a 6-10-3 finish in 2011. Buoyed by the return of 14 returning letterwinners, including 10 starters, there is plenty of optimism that MSU can build off a season in which it earned victories against perennial Southeastern Conference powers like then-No. 11 University of Florida and then-No. 20 Auburn University en route to its most SEC wins since the 2004 season, when it finished 5-5-1 and advanced to the SEC tournament. To earn even more victories of that caliber, MacDonald feels the team will need to improve offensively. He believes MSU, which was 3-7-1 in the SEC last season, has made strides in the preseason and that players like Dana Forbes and Elisabeth Sullivan up top can help the offense be more dangerous.
Last season, MSU scored 11 goals and allowed 20 in league play, its highest and lowest numbers since 2004, MacDonald’s first as the program’s head coach.
“I think it is really important we are creating more opportunities,” MacDonald said. “We have been working on our forwards’ movement and having them paint the picture for the midfielders. (We also have been) talking about how important it is for the middies to keep the ball moving and to make quick decisions so you can turn the back four.”
MacDonald said forwards can “paint the picture” for the midfielders by having “good intelligent movement and understanding what type of pressure the player on the ball has.” He said the players’ ability to read the game will tell them what runs they need to make and where they need to go to create space and, he hopes, scoring chances.
“The game is about pressure, so if a player has pressure we need to be checking and showing at an angle, probably short for them,” MacDonald said. “If they don’t have pressure, we probably need to see the front three moving accordingly off of marks and trying to get in behind so we can release them.”
MacDonald feels he has a pretty good idea which 11 players will start Friday. He said the focus this week will be to have that group play together more to develop a greater understanding. He also will target improving the team’s depth, which he said is better than it has been, especially if everyone stays healthy.
“We definitely have more options in the middle of the park,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald expects six of the class of 10 newcomers to make significant contributions. After that, he will look to eight seniors and Sullivan, a junior forward, to lead the way. Goalkeeper Skylar Rosson started 18 games and led the SEC with 131 saves. Midfielder Jasmine Simmons (18 starts), midfielder Madison McKee (17), defender Julie Waddle (11), and midfielder Lauren Morgan (18) have the most experience in the senior class.
Sullivan, who scored the fastest goal in program history to beat Florida, led the team with five goals and 13 points. Simmons was second on the team with five goals and 12 points.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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