As the old sports adage goes, defense wins championships.
If that is indeed the truth, the Missouri soccer team should be sitting pretty come NCAA Tournament time.
MU has played some of the nation’s stingiest defense thus far this season, having allowed just five goals through the team’s first eight games of this season. The Tigers are currently riding a four-match shutout streak, the program’s longest since 2006, when coach Bryan Blitz’s squad held five consecutive opponents to clean sheets.
“We’ve always scored a lot of goals, but this off-season we changed our philosophy and we decided that first and foremost we needed to really take pride in our defending,” Blitz said.
Since Blitz took over the program 15 seasons ago, MU soccer has developed the reputation as being a very aggressive bunch that can rack up the goal total in a hurry.
That “high-risk, high-reward” style of play with just three defenders in the back as opposed to the typical four-back can lead to some defensive deficiencies, which Tiger teams of yesteryear have experienced. This current squad sure has not encountered those issues.
“We’re winning games 1-0, which was difficult to do last year,” Blitz said. “Defense is something we really put an emphasis on this year, more so than in years past.”
Since losing their season opener at San Diego, the Tigers have won seven straight games, a streak that ties the program record set back in 2008. The last four games and five of the last six have come and gone without MU’s opponent scoring.
Goalkeeper McKenzie Sauerwein has made more than her fair share of quality saves, but the backline trio of juniors Allison Hu and Jessica Greer along with senior Mallory Stipetich has been the key to providing such staunch play on the Tigers’ side of the pitch.
“We are playing really well as a group right now,” Greer said. “Last year, we struggled finding the right group of people to mesh together in the back, but I think our coaches have done a really good job of getting us all on the same page now.”
Greer and Stipetich each saw plenty of playing time last year, but the addition of Hu has revamped the defense.
A transfer from Saint Louis University, Hu has grown into the role of a team leader and has made the other defenders better as well.
“It’s been really easy for her to get in the groove since she did play the back at SLU, too,” Stipetich said. “Mixing her strengths with our strengths has worked really well.”
Statistically, the defense is as good as it’s ever been under Blitz. However, Blitz stopped short of tabbing this group of defenders as the best he’s had at Missouri, but he left the door open to the notion.
“I’ll make that call whenever the season ends,” he said. “We’ve had some very good ones, but right now they certainly have the potential to be the best.”
Greer, Hu, Stipetich and the rest of the Tigers will put their streaks on the line Friday night at Walton Stadium, when they host No. 9 Florida.