Live Stats vs St. Cloud State (Friday)  l Game Notes
Live Stats vs Minnesota State (Sunday) l Live Stream Link

MANKATO, Minn.-- The second-ranked Grand Valley State women's soccer team will complete a four game non-conference slate with a pair of matchups in Minnesota this weekend. GVSU will play its first ever game against the Huskies of St. Cloud State on Friday, a neutral site game on The Pitch on the campus of Minnesota State-Mankato. That field will also be host to the Sunday afternoon matchup between the Lakers and the host Mavericks, ranked 18th in the country by the latest NSCAA poll. 

After a 2,000 mile trip out to California last weekend, the Lakers emerged from the weekend not entirely blemish free, as Sunday's opponent California Polytechnic-Pomona rallied from a halftime goal deficit to draw the Lakers in two overtimes, 1-1. That leaves the Lakers at a 1-0-1 record on the season, hardly worth worrying about but not entirely where they had hoped to be at. One signifcant area the Lakers showed improvement in is scoring the initial early goal, an area of struggle for the Lakers last season. Junior midfielder Dani Johnson needed just eight minutes of the young season to find the back of the net, the first goal for the Lakers and the game winner in the California State San-Bernardino match. In Sunday's matchup with the Broncos, senior Marti Corby's strike at 35' was prefaced by several decent looks by the visitors, as GVSU came out firing for the second straight game. 

"Our shot selection has been much better early this year in taking higher quality goal scoring chances, as opposed to taking the first one given to us", said GVSU head coach Jeff Hosler. "I'm impressed with the decisions that we've been making to be more dangerous, we just need to capitalize when we make the right decision and execute." 

Friday's matchup with St. Cloud State (1-1) offers a curveball for the team, as the two schools ahve no history together, and lack the prior experience and knowledge of each other's system and style of play. Under fourth year head coach Great Arvesen, the Huskies have been steadily improving their program, and split last weekend's matchups with GLIAC opponents Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech. 

"This is the first matchup of our two teams, so head to head we don't have much to go on", said Hosler. "Greta has done a good job early on in her coaching career, and the team is showing improvements under her guidance. They're still pretty young, but they're going to be a good side and they're going to show improvement in the Northern Sun conference this year. I think they will come into the game with a lot of confidence and with us being their only matchup this weekend, they can focus on just the one match, which can be advantageous for them. I expect they'll be very well organized defensively and will look to counter-attack to be dangerous, as they did in their matches in the U.P last weekend." 

Come Sunday, the Lakers will face a ranked opponent in the Mavericks of Minnesota State-Mankato. The two teams have history, having faced each other in each of the past two seasons, with the Mavericks defending their home pitch in 2014 with a 1-0 victory, and the Lakers holding serve last season with a 2-1 victory over a then fourthranked Mavericks squad. The two teams nearly played in the NCAA Quarterfinals as well, but the Mavericks fell to Central Missouri in the Central Regional Championship on a goal in the 87th minute, propelling the Jennies to a quarterfinals matchup with the Lakers instead. This season, the Mavericks are 0-0-1, having drawn with Wisconsin-Parkside on Sunday after two overtimes. Hosler notes the Lakers are prepared for the aggressive system that the Mavericks have traditionall favored.

"Minnesota State will be playing at home, which is a very tough place to play, they beat us there two years ago", said Hosler. "They are one of the elite teams in the Central Region along with Central Missouri. They are a very direct side, they play very physical and they're very deep. Our girls will have to win their physical battles, both in the air and in tackles, because in the past two years the team that can dictate the style of play has controlled the run of play, which always makes for interesting soccer because of the contrasting styles."

As the Lakers reflect on the opening weekend of the season, there is plenty to improve upon, and this weekend's matchups will provide a good opportunity to do so. Despite scoring first in both matches, and coming out of the gate with aggressiveness, the Lakers did not keep up the pressure and as a result were outworked by their opponents at times. 

"Big picture, complacency and consistency are things we need to work on", Hosler said. "In both matches, after we scored the first goal, we didn't play as effectively, we gave our opponents opportunities to get goal chances. We're looking to find a full 90 minute effort, I know it's difficult to find that early in the year, but with the amount of depth we have, I'd expect our efforts to be better."