Photo credit: Jeremy Olson
The Gophers have now lost three games in a row after falling just short in an impressive battle with top ranked Stanford. The good news? Each of the losses really was a bit unique, and it’s possible the young lineup for Minnesota may come out of non-conference play a bit more grizzled and ready to battle in Big Ten conference play. But first, they have to get past NDSU – and a whole slew of Minnesotans – Friday night.
We talked to Alli Lipsher (Director of Goalkeeping) and Celina Nummerdor (sophomore midfielder) to talk about their careers, how to get things moving in the right direction, and getting ready for NDSU. They were super gracious with their time. Give it a watch and a share! Minnesota 0, DePaul 1 Thursday, August 30 (Full live tweet thread) I’m not going to lie to you: there was not much to celebrate from this one. Minnesota generally played OK. But DePaul came in with a game plan and executed the hell out of it. They were incredibly disciplined on defense – including a clear strategy to trap April Bockin with two or three defenders any time she got the ball – and they made the most of a good chance to put themselves on the board. One silver lining on the night was the welcome home DePaul Head Coach Erin Chastain received. Her name litters the Gopher Soccer record books and we had to fight off a big crowd of friends just to interview her (below).
Minnesota 1, Stanford 2 Sunday, September 2 (Full live tweet thread) If someone looked at the Gophers results week to week and thought these two game were similar – because they were both losses – they could not be more wrong. It’s unfortunate that Minnesota seems to play down to their competition at times, but this game showed they can also absolutely play up. They were active. They played their high press as a unit. They moved well off the ball. When Stanford seemed content to kick the ball around their back line, Minnesota pushed forward and started making them feel uncomfortable. Sure, the Gophers continued their habit of giving up a preventable goal and ultimately lost, but they also fought back ferociously and scored a beautiful goal in the run of play against a team that hadn’t given one up in MORE THAN A YEAR (I’m sorry for shouting).
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