G Guerrieri assesses Aggie Soccer's response to first adversity

Texas A&M Soccer Coach G Guerrieri

On the takeaways from the FSU loss…

"Well, first takeaway was that FSU is pretty darn good, there’s a reason why they are the defending national champions. It was a big crowd for them at their place, it was a tough environment for us to play in and really I think we came out of it with a lot of confidence. We were winning the game for the first 70 minutes of the match — you know we scored an opportunistic goal, we were able to play in the spaces we wanted to play in.

"One of the big takeaways that we talked about after the match was giving up goals on set pieces a lot of times is a concentration and attitude issue that young players have got to learn pretty fast, otherwise they get burned. And that’s what happened to us on their field. The other goal that they scored was a really well-conceived goal, a really well-scored goal by the Seminoles, and that’s one that actually we can hopefully steal from to make our attack a little bit better.

"Also, it’s something that will help us if we can find ways to solve that, because Florida this week is an excellent attacking team. Savannah Jordan is an accomplished collegiate goal scorer and she scores goals very similar to what we gave up on Friday night."
 

On the team's response going into Sunday's game against ACU…

"I think Sunday’s match was a little bit of redemption. You know, you take a team that we started nine freshman and sophomores into the defending national champions, there’s going to be a little bit of apprehension, a little bit of wonder in those players as far as how they are going to come out of it. And I think as we came out of the game it was more of an issue of kind of kicking ourselves a little bit. We had a real opportunity to get a result out of that game."
 

On the message at half against ACU…

"Just to pick up our pace. Again, with a team of younger players, sometimes you lower your speed of play, your level to the opponent, and you can see that across the board. Basketball can do that, football can do that. We kind of just said, 'Listen, we’re playing alright, let’s just pick it up to a Texas A&M pace, we don’t think that people can stick with that,' and it proved to be."
 

On sophomores Haley Pounds and Mikaela Harvey…

"I was saying to a couple other people that last year with the personalities that we had, as far as seniors on this team, especially all the forwards — yourself (Annie) included — it’s hard sometimes to step into that shadow and play with those types of people. They were both, as the season went on last year, especially Mikki, really stepped up and played. Well, since the transformation of the team from an older team to a younger team, now these guys are leaders on this side.

"Mikki really runs the show for us, she’s our point guard, our quarterback, but Haley has been maybe the best or most improved player that we’ve seen so far. She’s playing with such an air of confidence, which as a forward is nine-tenths of the rule in success is: if you feel good about what you’re doing, you know you can do different things and you play to those strengths, you’re going to score goals — and that’s what she’s doing."
 

On this Thursday’s game against Florida…

"I think it’s going to be a great game. It’s a televised game on the SEC Network. It will be one where I think you’re going to see both teams hold the ball a little bit. Florida is obviously a very high-possession team, where most teams will try to complete 275 to 280 passes in a game, they are trying to complete about 600 passes in a game.

"So, we’ve got to be patient, we’ve got to be disciplined in the way that we play, and when we get it we have to make sure that we hold on to it and get ourselves into dangerous situations and finish those chances."