Much is to be said of Mizzou’s football team and their struggling offense, which lollygagged to a 9-6 victory Saturday against Connecticut at home.
But not far from Faurot Field is the stadium of a different Mizzou sports team facing their own offensive demons.
Just nine games into their season, the Mizzou women’s soccer team has been shut out a total of five times. The Tigers have failed to score in four of their last five games, the last two resulting in 1-0 losses.
To shed some perspective on the team’s offensive struggles, Mizzou (3-3-3) has already matched its shutout total from one year ago. The 2014 Tigers were shut out five times in their 22 games.
The frustration is mounting for the Tigers, as they know they are now in the all-important games of their schedule: conference play. Although 1-1 in these games, they are tied for second to last in the Southeastern Conference with just eight goals scored through nine games.
“Up top we’re not meshing. It’s kind of individual right now,” senior midfielder Reagan Russell said. “We need to bring it together as a team, and hopefully the goals will come.”
Still, Mizzou finds themselves with one solid offensive stat as a team. The Tigers are second in SEC with 178 shots, and an average of nearly 20 per game. But a shot percentage of .045 percent illustrates that the team is creating opportunities, just not capitalizing on them.
Russell, who scored seven goals last season as a junior, has 28 shots to her name in 2015, but only one goal to show for it.
Friday was a different story. In a 1-0 loss to No. 16 South Carolina, Mizzou fired 10 shots, a season low. Coach Bryan Blitz said he didn’t think his team came out strong enough in the loss, but he puts much of the blame on himself.
“We’re not scoring goals at this point, and that’s on me,” Blitz said. “I’m the attacking guy. We’ll continue to work through that. It’s a work in progress.”
But according to players, their practices with Blitz does not seem to be the problem.
“We’re actually practicing better than we’re playing games, which is unfortunate,” Russell said. “In practice our game is awesome; goals are scored quite a bit. We just can’t transfer it.”
Junior midfielder Melanie Donaldson reiterated this statement.
“That’s why it’s frustrating for us — because we are practicing well and our press is working,” Donaldson said. “We’re doing great things in practice, but maybe we need to pick it up more.”
Donaldson, who has zero goals on 13 shots this season, said the scoring rut is getting into their heads, but she is proud of the team’s chemistry through the struggles.
“Nobody’s saying it’s just the forwards,” Donaldson said. “We’re sticking with this as a team. It’s not separating us by any means.”
She said that yes, they need to score, but as a team.
And if there was one positive in Mizzou’s scoring attack so far, it would be its balance. Sophomore forward Savannah Trujillo is only Tiger with multiple goals. The six other goals have been scored by six different players.
“We’ve got good forwards, and we’ve got a good team,” assistant coach Don Trentham said. “We’re capable of scoring goals.”
Last season, the attack was not nearly as balanced. Then-senior Taylor Grant scored nine of the Tigers’ 37 goals. Now with Grant departed, the Tigers are more balanced, but still lack a controlling centerpiece of their offense.
“We just need a couple people to step up and take over,” Russell said. “Hopefully that will get us going. Me especially, as a senior, that’s a job I should take over.”
Donaldson, who Russell said is one of these people capable of stepping up, said it will take an strong flowing offensive game to spark their scoring habits back to life. Donaldson also said that some teams might be picking up on their tendencies, and that maybe they should mix things up.
“We need to fix this together,” she said.