IU Coach Amy Berbary believes in luck and, right now, she said her team could use some.
IU lost its third-consecutive Big Ten game to Illinois 2-0 Thursday. The Hoosiers will play again at 1 p.m. Sunday against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.
Despite feeling like her team improved, Berbary said the Hoosiers are still lagging behind their Big Ten counterparts.
She preached effort and stressed competition in practice all week. But when the team struggled and needed someone to rely on, they turned to the coaching staff for answers.
Moving forward into Sunday and the rest of the Big Ten season, Berbary said that needs to change.
“I think the players are still looking to me,” she said. “They need to look around to each other a little bit ... Sometimes, the coach doesn’t have all of the answers. We need our older players to show a little more leadership in these games.”
The Fighting Illini (7-2, 2-1) outshot the Hoosiers 20-4 Thursday. Berbary blamed a slow start for putting IU (4-5, 0-3) behind.
For the first 30 minutes of the game, IU rarely managed to connect on strings of passes. Nearly every attack stalled before IU could make a true threat at goal.
“I thought we started out the game flat,” Berbary said. “I did see flashes of us competing and more urgency from a few individual players but just not everybody. And that effort is only going to go so far.”
IU junior goalkeeper Sarah Stone and Berbary both agreed the offensive attack will only improve through transition from the defense.
IU will look to improve pushing tempo off of defensive stops and creating offense on counterattacks against Northwestern.
“I think we had a little bit of an issue with pushing today,” Stone said. “We just need to work on the details of that and keep descending down the field with all 11.”
IU’s best scoring opportunity ended on what Berbary called “bad luck.”
Senior midfielder Abby Smith missed a penalty kick and the ball went off the post. The Hoosiers managed another shot almost immediately off of the deflection, but the shot was saved.
It was that kind of day for the IU offense, which hadn’t scored in the last five halves of play.
“We knock one of those in and I don’t think we’re having the conversation about our offense not being able to produce,” Berbary said. “You make your own luck.”
Meanwhile, Illinois was taking advantage of set pieces. Senior Jannelle Flaws scored on a pair of nearly identical set pieces in the 20th and 58th minutes.
Despite allowing two goals, Stone registered an otherwise strong performance with six saves, including a one-on-one save around the 64th minute.
IU will look to register some much-needed points Sunday against Northwestern, who entered Friday 4-2-2, 0-1-1 before a Friday night game against Purdue.
Berbary said the team isn’t worried quite yet about the standings. Although IU is at the bottom now, the Hoosiers still have 11 games to get back on track.
“We’re still in control of our own destiny,” Berbary said. “We were just talking. We’re in last place now. Maybe that’s what we needed to get a fire going underneath us.”
