Every halftime, the Missouri soccer team walks into the clubhouse. The players have 10 minutes to themselves while their coaches discuss the first half. And while the women rest their aching muscles and retie their cleats, they are setting goals for the second half, where statistics show the Tigers (9-3-2) are at their best.
Out of Missouri’s 28 goals this season, 19 have come after the first half — 17 in the second half alone and the other two coming in overtime. Through 14 games, the Tigers are outshooting their opponents 139-87 from the second half on, compared to a 12-shot differential in the first half of games.
“Sometimes it feels like we play better with pressure,” Missouri coach Bryan Blitz said. “But we can’t always pull off the miracle comeback, which we’ve done a lot.”
Yes, sometimes a strong finish isn’t enough. In a 2-3 loss to Auburn on Oct. 10, all five of the match’s goals were scored in the second half. Opponents have scored 11 of their 17 goals in the second half against the Tigers.
Blitz said he’s still figuring out why Missouri is starting games slowly, and he wants the trend to change.
“One, we need to start quicker,” he said. “We have been resilient, but I’d sure like to even that out a little more, but I’ll take it when it works for us. Overall, I’ll take it as a positive, but I’ll also take it as something we need to work on moving forward.”
Blitz said he wishes he could take the credit for the changes and motivation produced at halftime for the Tiger team but called soccer “a player’s game.” He raved about the leadership and organization of the players at halftime.
“I give them the credit for being so adaptable and coachable at halftime,” Blitz said. “It’s the players. Before I even get to the locker room, they write things down and they try to figure it out.”
Senior Kaysie Clark started this halftime habit.
According to junior Reagan Russell, during the break of one of the first games of the season, Clark started writing a short list of second half goals on a whiteboard in the clubhouse. The habit stuck with the team. Now it’s a routine.
“Coming up with those goals and having them in our minds is a really helpful thing — what we need to achieve exactly, how we can come out way better than the first half,” Russell said. “We’ve already seen where we’ve messed up — what didn’t work, what worked.”
These goals commonly include scoring in a certain amount of minutes, completing passes and winning certain percentages of headers. For Russell, who has scored four of her career-high six goals this season in the second half, they make a difference.
“I think since they’re measurable goals and we actually know what we have to do to win. I think that really helps us mentally because we can check it off of our heads,” Russell said.
Senior Taylor Grant said the goals are easy to check off, as there are only three or four of them each game.
“A lot of it is us sticking together,” said Grant, who is tied for the team-lead with Russell with six goals. “Whether we’re ahead at halftime, or we’re behind, or tied, we need to come out and do better. We know the second half is what makes or breaks games, and we all come out really hard and fight for those last 45 minutes.”
