Women’s soccer: Pitt looks for second win

The Pitt women’s soccer team will attempt to pick up its second win of the season this weekend… The Pitt women’s soccer team will attempt to pick up its second win of the season this weekend when the Panthers travel north for two games in Michigan, visiting the Central Michigan Chippewas and the Oakland Univeristy Golden Grizzlies.

Bruised after a 3-0 loss to rival Penn State in the championship game of the Pitt Soccer Classic, Pitt (1-3-2) hopes to strengthen its offense as it takes on the Michigan teams.

“Even though the loss [to Penn State] looked bad, we played well on defense,” junior Ashley Cuba said. “We gave up a pair of unlucky goals in the last 18 minutes, so the loss looked worse than it really was.”

In their first game of the Pitt Classic, the Panthers tied Colorado College 2-2 after two overtimes. Pitt won an exhibition shootout 4-2 to earn the chance to play Penn State in the finals.

Senior midfielder Katelyn Ruhe, senior goalkeeper Kristina Rioux, redshirt freshman defenseman Alyssa Meier and Cuba all made the All-Tournament team.

“I feel like everyone deserved it because we played really well as a team, even though the results didn’t necessarily show that,” Meier said.

Meier, who missed all of her freshman season with a broken leg, is back on the field and helping the Panthers to improve defensively.  .

Meier and Cuba both said that the team worked on new formations during the week in order to help relieve some pressure from the defense.

“In practice this week, we changed our shape and some of our tactics, which I think will help out on defense,” Cuba said. “I feel like as a team we need more offense, but defense wins games. Offense sells tickets, but we need to play well on ‘D’ if we expect to win.”

The Panthers have struggled to score throught the beginning fo the season. Of the five goals Pitt has scored this year, four came off the foot of Cuba, who sits in third place all-time in school history with 17 goals.

Meier and the defense will look to help the struggling Pitt offense pick up two wins this weekend,starting in Mount Pleasant, Mich., on Friday against the 4-1 Chippewas.

Central Michigan is fresh off of a 1-0 overtime victory over Louisville for third place at the Cardinal Classic. In their first game of the tournament, the Chippewas suffered their first defeat of the year, losing to Kentucky 2-1 in overtime.

Three of Central Michigan’s four wins came via shutout, and the team has outscored opponents 8-3 so far this season. Goalkeepers Grace Labrecque and Stefanie Turner have combined for a miniscule .58 goals-against average.

On Sunday, the Panthers travel across Michigan to Rochester Hills to play the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies. Oakland is coming off of a 1-0 victory over Eastern Michigan, the team’s first victory of the year.

Like Pitt, the Golden Grizzlies have faced offensive difficulties. They’ve been shut out three times in their four losses, scoring only two goals all year. But Oakland did manage to beat Eastern Michigan, whom Pitt played to a draw (2-2) in the Panthers’ first game of the year.