Creighton women’s soccer coach Jimmy Walker previews the Bluejays upcoming matchup with Georgetown.
0:00- Intro
0:18 – opening statement
1:40 – Springing back after struggling in a half
2:30 – Starting conference play
3:50 – Starting conference with Georgetown
4:45 – Matching up tactically with Georgetown
5:45 – Multiple scorers in last couple games
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Good game. We got head women’s soccer coach Jimmy Walker. Teams coming off a two impressive wins last week. Erased a two nothing deficit to Omaha with three goals in the second half and then shut out uh South Dakota 4 nothing. Coach, just want to give us an opening statement about last week. Yeah, feel feeling a little bit better obviously than I have been previously throughout the season. last two weeks have been a lot more like us and how we want to play and the grit, the determination and the fight and all those things have been a lot more visible to see in the way we’ve been playing. Um I thought in the first game against UNO obviously we’ve got to get out of this habit of going down. Um but you can only take your last game in regards to where you’ve improved. So um the way we came back in the second half against UNO is elite. I don’t think we had a shot against us the entire 45 minutes and scored some good goals. And then we followed that up with um denying um any shots at all on Sunday. We didn’t have any shots in the game, which is huge. If you do that in regards to your team and you’re not conceding shots, it’s pretty impressive. So, got to keep doing that. We’ve got a big game coming up with Georgetown. So, uh if we’re ready to go and we can keep their two forwards quiet, I think we got a good chance. Question. Do you think uh I think there was a lot of optimism after the Arkansas match, right? Because you guys fought your way back into it and had a chance to win, but it seemed like the UNO first half was a step back and then you guys played with the urgency you need to play with in the last 45 when you were desperate. Yeah. Do you think the alarm bells kind of like the attendance the antennas went up after the UNO match because of the way you played against South Dakota and now it’s actually springboarded you into what you should? Yeah, I I think I think so. and and you know that’s a little reminder again is like over the course of the season you’re going to have those moments in games where you might have a bad half or you come out a little bit flat. I think the message to the team is you know we can’t take anybody lightly. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing on our day we’re good enough to compete with anybody and on our day uh we can struggle against anybody and I think that the finally the light bulbs going off and that desperation of now hey you had one last dress rehearsal till conference play starts and then we can’t afford those errors at this point. So, I think the players are well aware of what Sat Saturday is going to be like with Georgetown. They know it’s a good team. We’re going to be have have to be at our best to beat them. So, I think that preparation now and that mindset has to just be laser focused all week. Does the big picture stuff go out the window now that conference play starts? Because it’s almost like whatever happens to your season in terms of postseason play is going to be dictated by whatever you do these last couple months. Yeah. I mean, it really is. If we want to get to NA tournament, we’re going to have to do well in conference. So, a lot of the games that we’ve had are warm-up games for what we’re doing, we have to be successful in the in the Big East. But, if I really look at our non-conference segment this year cuz we’ve just finished it. If I was looking at that and if if you know, I felt the Iowa State game with the statistics probably could have gone our way. And if that goes our way, we’re sitting 4-3 and one going into conference play. If you’d have told me that at the start of the season, I’d absolutely taken that 4-3 and one with the schedule that we put together. That would have been a fantastic um pre preseason, you know, before we went into conference play. That would probably put us in the top 60 RPI, which gives you a chance and at large birth as well. So, you know, if you take that one game out of the equation, it hasn’t been all bad. Um probably, you know, as good as what I was hoping, but just that one game lets us down a little bit. So, uh Georgetown’s obviously been top of the table in this conference for, you know, a decade plus. um Xavier’s kind of come on, but when you look at Georgetown and kind of what this match represents, is it do you like that it’s the first one? Because you’re going to have the excitement of it being the conference opener. You’re going to have the excitement of it being the home opener in Big East play and you’re going to have the team that kind of everyone’s always chasing in the Big East. Yeah, it’s it’ll certainly be interesting. You know, you got you just never know psychologically what players are thinking or how they’re preparing mentally for games. I mean, you’re looking for us. we should be up up at the moment with the way we’ve been playing and you know the fact we can score three goals against Arkansas means we can do it against most teams. Um so you’ve got that couple of players have been player of the week this week. So I’m hoping that confidence and that buzz is there. But the flip side to it is Georgetown just lost. So you know they’re going to be amped up to not want to lose two in a row. So you you can kind of it’s like anything else in conference play. It’s on the day like anything really in athletics. it’s on the day and the team that shows up to play on on Saturday will probably win the game and uh it gives you a really good chance if you compete. So, what do you see from Georgetown tactically in terms of you were you were kind of curious about, you know, how it matches up with how you typically like to play? Did do you feel like that’s still the case? I do. I do think so. Depending on what they decide to come out with, they can play a 352. Recently, they played a 4-33. Um, you know, so hopefully we can match up with them. I do know one of the keys that they’ve got, they’ve got two, you know, really good forwards like what you see against Arkansas like what you see against Duke. They’ve got two very talented forwards that if we have, you know, if we’re going to beat them on Saturday, we’re going to have to shut those guys down because they’re talented kids, dangerous players, score lots of goals. They’re really experienced. I thought they’d graduated last year. I was hoping they were. Uh but they still got eligibility left and they’re both good players. So, if we want to be successful, we have to defend really well as well on uh on Saturday. Time for two more. When you look at the the disparity in your goals this week, does that does that shoot a level of confidence into your, you know, attacking group and then also, you know, you know, your 10ens and other players that are kind of coming in behind the attack to finish things off? Like, do you feel like right now there’s a lot of players that are kind of, you know, have some enhanced swagger because they found the back of the net? That’s really pleasing to see cuz if you’ve just got one forward scoring all the goals and they and everyone’s concentrating their attention on that player, it opens up space and freedom for other players to score goals. So to see so many players scoring goals in the last couple of weeks has been really pleasing to see. Um there should be a lot of confidence with it. Our set pieces, we’ve scored in in the last three games off of a set piece, which is huge for us from an attacking perspective. Um I love the fact we got a shut out last week. We we were, you know, we’ve been working really hard to get that, but to get a shut out and no shots in what 135 minutes maybe, is really really pleasing from a defensive perspective because if we’re going to have to put both of those together to beat Georgetown, we’re going to have to defend really well and we’re going to need our forwards to be sharp. Anything else? Cool. No, looking forward to the game on Saturday. Yeah. Thanks, guys. appreciate it as
