G Guerrieri happy with offensive play ahead of SEC home-opener vs. Kentucky
On the offense’s recent success...
I think the players are just finding themselves in the offense. Their roles are more defined. I think the coaches have been doing a good job of that, keeping people out of other people’s lanes and when we can do that we can spread people out. We’ve got international players like Ally Watt, Asdis Halldorsdottir and Addie McCain. When those guys are clicking it’s something to behold, on top of that, Cienna Arrieta has done a great job locking down the midfield for us and Taylor Ziemer is a phenomial playmaker and finisher. She scored in the game at Mississippi State and has set up a lot of scores for us too.
On their match up against Kentucky ...
Well, Kentucky comes in off a loss in a one-second corner kick that they could have challenged - if that was a thing- that’ll be a bit of a sting to them. They tied their initial SEC match to Auburn so I’m sure they feel pretty good about their play despite the result. They’re a physical team, I’m sure they’ll come in and try to knock us around Ellis which we’ll be ready for.
On their match up against LSU...
The hardest thing is going to be the bus trip, the game is going to be crazy hard but a six and half hour ride to the game, then play the game, then a six and half hour bus ride back, that’s a long trek for our girls. So we’ll be focusing on the physical side this week knowing that it’ll be Thursday night and knowing that we have to take care of ourselves for that bus ride against an LSU team that are defending SEC champs.
On keeping up the defensive consistency...
Well, I’m really proud of the way our goalkeepers have been playing, Kenna Caldwell came in for the last half of the game on Friday but Shantel has been playing awesome in goal. We’ve played 11 games this season and in 11 games we have 9 shutouts and that’s pretty remarkable with the fact that we had zero minutes experience at goal at the college level with all of our goalkeepers combined. So I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted how good they’ve done. A big part of that is because the people playing in front of the goalkeeper. Karlina Sample has been, in my opinion, the best goal stopper in the country with the way she reads the game and the way she reads the backline. Bri Alston played in the center for us on Sunday night and did awesome and Callyn Walton and Jordan Hill are just hard to stop so that’s the secret to success. We just have great athletes and people who play hard for each other.