The Butler women’s soccer team is scheduled to play in its first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament tomorrow.

The Bulldogs ended the regular season with an overall record of 11-4-4 and went 5-1-3 in conference play to finish in fourth place.

Butler will be entering the tournament as the No. 4 seed, having won three of its last four matches.

The top eight teams in the A-10 standings qualified for the tournament out of the league’s 16 teams.

No. 5 seed St. Bonaventure is an unfamiliar opponent to the Bulldogs. Tomorrow’s quarterfinal match will be the teams’ first meeting this season. The Bonnies went 8-10-1 overall and 5-4-0 in conference play.

“We haven’t played [the Bonnies], yet it is kind of an advantage because we don’t come in with any preconceived notions,” junior midfielder Mary Allen said. “But it’s kind of a disadvantage too because you don’t know what to expect at all, but I think it’s a good thing we haven’t played them yet.”

If Butler beats St. Bonaventure, the Bulldogs would play the winner of the match between first-seeded La Salle and eighth-seeded Charlotte. The Bulldogs beat Charlotte 1-0 in the regular season finale Sunday. They have not faced La Salle this season.

If Butler does face a familiar opponent later in the tournament, both teams would already know what to prepare for.

“There’s so much to playing a team twice, so even if we play the eight teams we’ve already played, those teams are going to come at us and know how we play (and) go against our weaknesses,” junior midfielder Olivia Colosimo said.

With the potential of playing up to three games in four days, the grind of tournament play can be hard on players.

“Your body doesn’t get a full recovery in between games, but you go into it knowing that,” Colosimo said. “I think you mentally prepare yourself and physically prepare yourself in the days ahead so that you’re ready to play two or three games back to back.”

Players must also prepare themselves for the added pressure of playing in a single-elimination tournament.

“There’s a lot more pressure,” Allen said. “You have to be focused all the time. You can’t let up even for a second because the other team could capitalize on it. One goal could end your season.”

Butler’s quarterfinal match against St. Bonaventure is at 1:30 p.m. in Kingston, R.I. Semifinal matches are on Friday, and the final is on Sunday.

The Butler women’s soccer team defeated the Ball State Cardinals (3-3-2) 2-1 on the road after rallying from an early deficit.

The Bulldogs are now 2-2 when playing on the road.

The Bulldogs (6-3-1) were down the majority of the first half after an early goal by Ball State.

In the 44th minute freshman Sophia Maccagnone dribbled past two Cardinal defensemen before drilling a shot past the goalkeeper to tie the match.

Four minutes into the second half, senior Claire Milam tallied another goal for Butler.

Milam’s goal gave the Bulldogs the advantage they needed to put away the Cardinals.

The physical contest saw 35 fouls.

Last Friday, the Bulldogs pummeled the Eastern Illinois Panthers (2-6-0) 3-0 in their night match at the Butler Bowl.

The Bulldogs outshot the Panthers 27-4 in the one-sided contest.

Butler goalkeeper junior Julie Burton got her second start of the year and delivered a clean sheet.  Burton recorded one save in the victory.

A foul in the box set up Maccagnone to break the scoreless tie. Maccagnone buried a penalty kick into the back of the net, giving the Bulldogs the 1-0 lead.

Maccagnone stretched the Bulldog lead to 2-0 in the 80th minute after scoring her second goal of the match.

The Bulldogs held a 7-1 advantage in corner kicks.

In the waning moments of the game, junior Olivia Colosimo delivered a corner kick to junior Ali Backscheider, who gave Butler its final goal.

Maccagnone leads the team with five goals, including three in her last two matches.

She was named the Atlantic-10 Rookie of the Week.

The Butler women’s soccer team failed to knock off its second Big Ten opponent this season when it faced the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Friday.

The Wolverines (6-2-0) got an early jump on the Bulldogs (3-3-1) and rode the momentum to a 3-0 victory.

It took just 10 minutes for Michigan junior midfielder Meghan Toohey to dent the twine, pushing the Wolverines to a 1-0 lead.

“Instead of holding our ground and just playing our game, we adjusted to their strengths and it cost us an early goal we should have easily defended,” sophomore midfielder Katie Reed said.

Butler freshman goalkeeper Mackenzie Hopkins recorded all three of her saves in the first half of the contest.

Michigan’s offense struck again within the first five minutes of the second half.

A cross by freshman forward Corinne Harris sailed over Hopkins and into the net, extending the Wolverines’ lead to 2-0.

Harris slipped another shot past Hopkins only 51 seconds later, giving Michigan a 3-0 lead.

The final goal put the nail in Butler’s coffin, adding to a deficit that proved too much for the Bulldogs to overcome.

“I think we can take a lot from this loss,” Reed said. “If we don’t all get on the same page with that focus come game time, not even our best performance can get us a win.”

Butler’s offense came into the contest averaging nearly 15 shots per game. The Bulldogs mustered just seven shots against Michigan, with only three on target.

“To hold us to single-digit shot attempts, Michigan had high pressure the whole game that made it difficult to get shots off,” Reed said.

The physical bout had a total of 22 fouls, with one yellow card handed out to Toohey.

The Bulldogs look to bounce back from their defeat when they play Eastern Illinois on Friday in the Butler Bowl.

Published Sept. 5, 2012

This Saturday, Butler’s football team will be taking part in its first game under lights since the early-1940s.

This is an important step for Butler from an athletic standpoint.

With the university’s jump to the Atlantic 10 Conference last summer, school officials would probably like to prove that they can host athletic events under a variety of circumstances (despite the fact the football team will not be part of the A-10).

Saturday’s game could help the flexibility of the football team’s scheduling in the future as well.

However, moving some football games and, before them, some men’s and women’s soccer matches to an under-the-lights setting could also pose a potential problem for the university.

Butler attempted its first athletic triple-header last September. The football team and both soccer squads had contests in the Butler Bowl on the same day.

The triple-header was likely a new and, at times, exhausting expeience for some members of Butler’s athletics department. Running one athletic event in a given day requires a number of different operations and activities to take place in very short amounts of time.

Doing those same activities three times over the course of eight to 10 hours would likely be draining.

Accordingly, the athletics department has not scheduled three events in the Bowl on a single day this academic year.

However, two separate weekends this month will see a great amount of athletic activity in short periods of time.

The first of these is this weekend, and that schedule reads as follows:

Friday, Sept. 7
Volleyball—Butler Classic, starts 11 a.m.
Men’s soccer—Butler vs. Northern Kentucky, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 8
Football—Butler vs. Franklin, 6 p.m.
Volleyball—Butler Classic, starts 6 p.m.

Sunday, Sept. 9
Men’s soccer—Butler vs. Central Arkansas, 1 p.m.

With no rest for the weary, Butler also has the following schedule assembled for Saturday, Sept. 29:

Football—Butler vs. Dayton, 1 p.m.
Women’s soccer—Butler vs. Saint Louis, 7 p.m.
Volleyball—Butler vs. Duquesne, 7 p.m.

It is great that Butler is finding opportunities for fans to take in multiple sporting events in a given day, but I see two major issues with this sort of scheduling.

The first lies in overextending and straining the athletics department staff.

I cannot speak for those within the department. I cannot say those individuals were exhausted at the conclusion of the triple-header last year, that they were unable to rise from their respective beds the next morning.

One might think that taking care of the operations and behind-the-scenes work for three athletic events in a single day—especially with one being the school’s first athletic contest under lighting since World War II—might be a bit stressful, though.

So this year, the staff gets to run that gauntlet twice in four weeks.

It may prove to be even more difficult this time around. Some teams have contests scheduled over each other.

Starting the finale of volleyball’s Butler Classic and the first night football game in more than 70 years at the same time cannot possibly benefit an athletics department staff that will have dealt with earlier volleyball and men’s soccer action less than 24 hours prior.

Slotting the women’s soccer and volleyball teams into the same starting time just hours after the conclusion of a football game is potentially problematic as well.

And then there are the fans that, on the surface, benefit from receiving the opportunity to view multiple sporting events in a given day.

There is clearly an issue with attendance at Butler’s fall athletic events. Figures are not high, and the stands of the Bowl and Hinkle Fieldhouse are nowhere near full during such events.

That is why it is difficult for me to understand how scheduling events on top of each other will fix this. Fans cannot be in two places at the same time.

Also, if a day is filled with events, the casual observer will probably only attend the first on the list. It is simply overwhelming to attend three athletic contests in one day.

Overwhelming is the key word in this discussion. If stacked scheduling is some sort of initiation into the A-10, the Butler community will have to live with being overwhelmed.

Otherwise, the school should realize that it might be taking on more than it can handle.

With rain coming down in sheets at the Butler Bowl, the Butler women’s soccer team battled Tennessee-Martin to a scoreless draw on Sunday.

The Bulldogs (3-2-1) and Skyhawks (1-3-1) had to gear up not only for a battle against each other, but also against the remnants of Hurricane Isaac.

Photo by Heather Iwinski

The back-and-forth affair had its fair share of close calls.

For Butler, the closest of these came in the 59th minute when freshman midfielder Sophia Maccagnone sent a shot off the crossbar. The near miss was one of her four shots.

“I was able to get those chances mainly because my teammates were making them possible,” Maccagnone said. “They were opening space for me and making runs that caused UT Martin to spread out.”

After 110 minutes, neither team was able to dent the twine, despite a combined 33 shots between the squads.

“In weather like today, it’s very important for me to concentrate on catching the ball and being ready to react if the ball slips from my hands,” freshman goalkeeper Mackenzie Hopkins said.

The Bulldogs tallied 16 shots, but only two of them were on net.

Hopkins recorded five saves in the tie.

Last Wednesday, the Bulldogs grabbed their third victory of the season, downing Purdue 1-0.

The win was Butler’s first against the Boilermakers (4-2-0) in school history.

“It doesn’t matter which league each team plays in,” Hopkins said. “It matters which team is better on that day.”

The game’s only goal was scored when Maccagnone was able to step up and bury a penalty kick, helping Butler to its first road victory of the season.

“I did feel a lot of pressure,” Maccagnone said. “There wasn’t that much time left on the clock, and you never know if that could be our last opportunity to score.

“I knew my team had confidence in me, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t disappoint my teammates.”

The Bulldogs will head north Sunday to take on the University of Michigan.

The Butler women’s soccer team looked to continue its winning streak with two non-conference games last weekend.

The Bulldogs (2-2) had their first away match against Eastern Michigan (1-1-1) that ended in a 1-0 loss.

“Our first away game was especially difficult because EMU has a grass field. It definitely threw off the pace of our play and it took a lot of adaptions on our part,” freshman forward Addison Schaar said.

Both teams had a scoreless first half, despite combining for a total of 15 shots in the first half.

The Eagle’s freshman forward Sarah Deakin scored the only goal of the match in the 65th minute.

“We’re using this loss as motivation to come out and beat Purdue this Wednesday, as well as giving us something to improve on during training,” said Schaar.

Three players scored their first goal of the season for the Bulldogs (2-2), propelling them to a 3-0 win over the Sycamores (1-2) last Friday.

With eight minutes remaining in the first half, Butler tallied its first goal, a long-distance strike by freshman midfielder Sophia Maccagnone.

The second half, much like the first, was dominated by physical play. The two squads combined for 24 fouls in the match.

“Going into the game we knew how the game was going to be so we just went right back at them with being physical,” sophomore forward Stephanie Kaylor said.

In the 57th minute, a well-placed corner kick by Kaylor was deposited in the back of the net off the head of sophomore defenseman Kelly Mahoney, giving the Bulldogs a 2-0 advantage.

Photo by Jaclyn McConnell

“I know that if I put the ball in a certain spot just beyond the keeper, one of my teammates will put it in the back of the net,” Kaylor said.

Moments later sophomore forward Elise Kotsakis delivered on a penalty kick, putting the game out of Indiana State’s reach.

The Sycamores were unable to record a shot attempt in the second half.

Butler will continue its non-conference schedule with a match at Purdue tonight starting at 7 p.m.

After dropping its season opener to Louisville, the Butler women’s soccer team was ready to put the first loss  in the past and move on to Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
The Bulldogs (1-1) came out firing on all cylinders  to get their first win of the season. The Bulldogs finished the Mastodons (0-1) off by a score of 1-0 during regulation time.
The Bulldogs had their mix of experience on the field for the game. Freshman Addison Schaar stepped up for Butler by beating the IPFW defensemen and scored the lone Bulldog goal in the 43rd minute.
IPFW did not go down easily. A late charge in the first half made Freshman goal keeper Mackenzie Hopkins  make a goal line save to maintain Butler’s one goal lead.
The game was quite the battle with physical play during both halves; both teams received yellow cards in the progress.
In the end, the relentless, swarming attack of the Bulldogs was too much for the Mastodons to handle. The Bulldogs now will prepare for Indiana State University for their next match Friday, August 24 in the Butler Bowl at 7pm.

With memories of the team’s 1-0 double overtime loss to Louisville possibly sitting in the minds of some Butler women’s soccer players, the Bulldogs looked to avenge the defeat in tonight’s rematch.

The Cardinals (1-0) proved to be too strong for the Bulldogs (0-1) to handle, however, as Louisville made its way to a 2-0 victory. The match was the season-opener for both teams.

In a game dominated by physicality, a finesse performance by Louisville sophomore forward Casey Whitfield in the 53rd minute led to the game-winning tally.

Just moments after beating multiple Butler defenders–only to have a shot turned away by Butler junior goalkeeper Julie Burton–Whitfield threaded the ball through several of the same Bulldogs and beat Burton with a shot.

In the 84th minute, junior midfielder Angelika Uremovich put the icing on the cake for the Cardinals by firing a shot over the outstretch arms of Burton off a free kick.

Sophomore forward Elise Kotsakis recorded five shots for the Bulldogs, and freshman midfielder Sophia Maccagnone added three11 more. Butler was outshot 11-10 by Louisville.

The match also saw 16 fouls and three yellow cards between the squads.

Butler will stay at home and prepare for Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. The two teams will square off in the Butler Bowl Sunday at 2 pm.

Spring has arrived on campus, but that does not mean the school’s fall athletic teams are resting easy.

The Butler men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball teams are currently participating in spring seasons even though their regular seasons are still months away.

The men’s and women’s soccer teams are both in the middle of month-long exhibition seasons that run from late March to the end of April.

The men’s squad took on Oakland last Saturday and has four games remaining this spring. The women’s team has already faced three teams and will take on Indiana on April 21.

Men’s soccer coach Paul Snape said playing games against other schools in the offseason gives players a chance to face off against different competitors.

“The problem is when you play against each other, you can get stale,” Snape said, “so playing other teams is a great opportunity to stay fresh.”

Junior forward Katie Griswold, a member of the women’s soccer team, said spring games help the team plan strategy for the fall season.

“[Spring games] let our coaches see what we need to work on, what will best suit the team and which formations will fit our team best,” Griswold said.

The volleyball team has matches scheduled on each of the first three Saturdays in April.

Junior outside hitter Rachel Barber said that the younger members of the team take advantage of the spring season.

“(The spring season) benefits the younger players the most,” Barber said. “It’s about getting comfortable with each other and allowing the coaches to develop players.”

The football team may not have games scheduled for the offseason, but coach Jeff Voris has 14 practices planned between March 23 and April 20.

The practices will culminate in the annual Blue-White Spring Game on April 21.

Sophomore running back Trae Heeter said that the squad focuses on re-implementing the team’s formations.

It also gives younger players time to impress the coaching staff.

“In the spring, we re-install either our offensive schemes or our defensive schemes,” Heeter said. “It’s basically a time for the guys that have been here to continue to work on their skills and for the freshmen and sophomores to go out there and show the coaches what they can do.”