Quotes From Head Soccer Coach Felix Oskam
October 09, 2000 | Women's Soccer
Oct. 9, 2000
"We definitely had our chances in the second half after we tied it up. The last 10 minutes, we tried to clear the ball out. We pulled the offsides trap. Everybody moved forward except for one player. The ball came back and it was onside for Missouri and they went one-on-one and put it past our goalkeeper. It was unfortunate. In the last five minutes, I pushed everyone forward to get a tying goal and they got a breakaway and scored the third goal."
"It was a tough road trip. It puts us in a whole in the Big 12 Conference race. Baylor's coming up Sunday. We haven't beaten Baylor in four years. It's going to be tough. The thing that is positive is that we played well against Missouri. I had six freshmen starting. I've been starting five the last four games. I made some adjustments for Sunday's game, different players to shake things up a little bit. We're still very young."
"Coming back to our homefield gives us an advantage over teams who are not used to playing on the smaller, more narrow field. Baylor overall has better team speed than we do. Hopefully the smaller, more narrow field will help us. We have to work hard this week."
"[At Kansas Friday] Both teams had to play in the cold and a little rainy and the wet, bad field. I told them it was going to be bad, you guys adjust to it, deal with it. Both teams have to play on it. Obviously it had an affect on the performances of both teams. But we just made some mistakes that we can't afford to make, and it's costing us. And it's not just because we're young. It's because we're just making the wrong decisions on the field at that particular time."
"We're a more talented team overall, more bench depth. I'm substituting much more than I ever have in the last two or three years. That's the good side. They turned around Sunday. They played very well. We came back the first 10 minutes [of the second half] and scored the tying goal. After that, I was feeling pretty good because I thought we could take the game. Unfortunately at the end, we seemed to break down at crucial times. Ten minutes before the end of each half, that's crucial time. We have to overcome that and learn to have the killer instinct or learn to hold the tide and at least give us a chance to go into overtime."
"We need to have this win Sunday to have a hope to still go to San Antonio [in the Big 12 Tournament]. We control our own destiny, so to speak. We have four games left, and we need at least two, for sure. And those two are probably against Iowa State and Colorado, since they are on the bottom with us right now. We just have to take it one game at a time, and Baylor is next on Sunday. Obviously beating Baylor would give us a tremendous boost in self-confidence."