Goals.
It’s simple enough, and it’s exactly what the men’s soccer team needs as they head into the Atlantic Ten Conference portion of its schedule.
Coming off a 1-0 loss to Hartford Saturday, and with the team tallying just six goals in their seven games, the focus for coach David MacWilliams is offense.
“We’re looking to get on the board,” MacWilliams said. “The last couple games, we’ve had some problems finding the goal. I think we do a pretty good job defensively, but unless you score goals, you’re not going to win games.”
Due to the lack of offense, which has put the team in a 2-4-1 hole to begin the season, some teams might panic and make drastic changes in order to find the right ingredients to make more noise on the scoreboard.
While MacWilliams isn’t willing to go that far, he admits the team is still searching for the right combination of players.
“Because we haven’t found the goal on a consistent basis, we might change our [attack] or even our formation,” he said, “just to see if we can generate more goals.”
The good thing for the Owls is that they have time to prepare. With their conference schedule slated to begin on Oct. 6 against La Salle, MacWilliams will have plenty of time for practice as the Owls look to better themselves in A-10 play. The Owls finished 1-8 in the conference last season and have not made the A-10 tournament since reaching the final in 2004.
“Obviously we’d like to think we’re going to do well in [the A-10],” MacWilliams said. “We want to try to find some momentum, build some success, and that all starts with scoring goals.”
However, MacWilliams understands that his team still has a lot of work to do.
“[We’re not ready] as of yet, no,” he said. “I think we’re playing good soccer, but we’re not getting results.”
The Owls have their final non-conference tune-up, and first home game, tomorrow afternoon against city-rival Philadelphia University. The contest is a Philadelphia Soccer Seven game for the Owls, which acts as the soccer version of the Big Five.
Todd Orodenker can be reached at todd.orodenker@temple.edu.
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