Without scoring many goals, or even taking many shots early on, the Minutewomen have managed to stay competitive, and through five games this season, the team has a winning record.
The beginning of the season showed a steady climb in the number of shots the Minutewomen took. Although they didn’t always hit the back of the net, there was a show of promise.
Games against Fairfield, Elon and Bryant saw the Minutewomen put up 12, 16 and 22 shots, respectively. The results were as mixed as they could be, earning a tie, win and loss in that trio of games.
In the last couple of games, though, what has changed isn’t UMass’ mixed bag of results, but how it arrived at those results.
Most recently, the Minutewomen were outshot, 42-11, in two games by Harvard (20-8) and then-No. 20 Boston University (22-3). UMass fell to Harvard, but secured the upset against BU despite a 22-3 shot disadvantage.
For UMass coach Ed Matz, the shot disadvantage is mostly to do with the change in the level of competition.
“Both [BU and Harvard] have a very good chance of getting to the NCAA Tournament this year,” said Matz. “Both have a very good chance of winning their conference championships. I’d just attribute it to that.”
However, having had recent encounters with better competition and being dominated in shot totals, UMass has showed that they can get the job done in other ways.
According to Matz, an increase in the Minutewomen’s caliber of play has spanned from the second half of the Harvard game through the BU game. Getting that early season experience against tournament-worthy teams can help a young team grow, according to Matz, who was glad to see his squad perform when given that opportunity.
“We played extremely well in the second half of that [Harvard] match. I was very proud how we came out in the second half,” said Matz.
Despite totaling three shots in the BU game, Matz was again impressed with the effort, making it clear that no matter what the inconsistency on offense, UMass has the ability to win games based solely on shot percentage. Of the 69 shots the Minutewomen have taken through their first five games, 28 of them have been on goal, or approximately 40 percent.
Matz also attributes the enhanced play to the defense.
“If you play good solid defense for 90 minutes, anything is possible,” Matz added.
Another facet of UMass’ game that has been working well has been that of the set pieces.
“The good thing is when your offense is struggling you kind of rely on your set pieces to get you a goal,” said Matz. “And you know getting that goal off our set piece [against BU] created a lot of confidence. Hopefully [that can] help us sometime in October.”
The Minutewomen will get plenty of opportunity to test what they’ve learned as a team in October, but before then they will have three games left against Maine (3-1-1), Brown (4-0-1) and Dartmouth (1-4-0) before hosting Rhode Island Oct. 1.
Eric Mansfield can be reached at [email protected].
