By
Audrey DeAnda
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wildcats to test mettle in Los Angeles road trip
A battered and bruised UA soccer team will try to earn its second win of the season tonight when they travel to the Los Angeles area to finish out a four-game road trip.
Injuries and illness forced head coach Cathy Klein to end practice early Wednesday before the team left for the West Coast.
"We're at that stage in the year where it's just fatigue, wear and tear," Klein said.
The Wildcats (1-4-1) will enter the weekend's games without two of its veteran players.
Senior goalkeeper Inger Airheart and junior defender Cassidy Guinn will each miss significant time this weekend as they battle nagging injuries.
Guinn, who has an injured shoulder, will miss today's game against Pepperdine and is doubtful for Sunday's game against Loyola Marymount.
Klein will use a combination of replacements to spell the junior.
"We're going to move (freshman midfielder) Liz Bartlett into the back and everything else is a day-by-day adjustment," Klein said.
The Wildcats kick off their road trip tonight against Pepperdine University. After losing their season opener, the Waves have won five straight games, bringing their season record 5-1-0 overall.
Pepperdine forward Kate Desmond leads the Waves in scoring with three goals and five assists.
After playing Pepperdine, Arizona will head to nearby Loyola Marymount to take on another hot team.
The Lions, whose record stands at 5-1-1, are coming off a three-game winning streak.
LMU defender Stacy Roberts has two goals in the young season.
While UA should compete in both games, the Wildcats are hardly favorites.
"We're clearly the underdogs in both matches," Klein said. "LMU and Pepperdine are both excellent."
LMU and Pepperdine play indirect soccer - relying less on attacking and more on passing - Klein said.
The coach's philosophy will not stray despite the opposition's playing style.
"We have to play our own game and stick with our own strengths and abilities," Klein said. "We're doing nothing differently than we've done all year."
Part of developing a winning mentality in the program is developing the mindset of a winner, something the Wildcats hardly displayed last weekend.
"We were leading in both games this (past) weekend and we got scored on in the last five minutes of both games," Klein said.
During practice this week, Klein has tried to develop the team's ability to play under pressure by putting the players in different scenarios and letting the players compete.
"You can make it similar to the pressure that they feel and try to provoke the same response in them, so you can train them how to get out of it," Klein said. "But the game is the best training around, and I'll tell you that they are going to feel that pressure this weekend."
Junior midfielder Twila Kaufman said the new drills have helped the team become more productive.
"Having to stop and re-evaluate after every goal (helps us) not to let the same mistake happen again," she said. "(The scenarios) show the consequences and what we could have done to prevent it.
Even though the Wildcats had a good offensive showing this past weekend - beating New Mexico and tying Evansville - Kaufman said the team should have had better results based on how they played.
"We won (against New Mexico) having not played our best game," Kaufman said. "Winning proves that we can win; winning without playing our best proves that there's more to come. We can do better than just winning or just tying."
Senior forward Keri Kennedy-Weber said is already feeling pressure to win following last week's showing.
"We won one game but now for ourselves, Cathy, and everyone who supports us, we need to continue to win," Kennedy-Weber said.
But Klein - in her first season at the UA helm following a career at Iowa State - is apparently more concerned with giving a solid effort than winning.
"After every win, tie or loss, it's the same evaluation - 'did we stick to our game plan, are we proud of our effort, did we earn our opponent's respect?'" Klein said.
