Soccer coach Michelle Salmon couldn't have scripted a better opening week of Mid-American Conference play. Her Ball State University Cardinals soccer team opened the conference season with a 2-0 weekend at home.
Now the Cardinals are staring a larger giant in the face.
Starting with a Friday match-up at Bowling Green University, followed by a Sunday matinee match against Toledo University, the Cardinals will deal with the devils of playing conference matches on the road.
"We're excited about going out and playing on the road," Salmon said. "Whenever you have a great week of practice heading into a weekend you tend to perform well. We're going up against two traditionally great teams. Bowling Green and Toledo are two of the top teams in the conference, so it's an important weekend for us."
Though the Cardinals' players realize the task they're up against is certainly daunting, they're not bashful in their expectations. Senior Amy Holst said she expects nothing less than another 2-0 weekend, even if this time is on the road.
"We expect to win all the conference games we play in," Holst said. "All conference games are close, so home-field advantage definitely helps. But we're used to playing away from home."
If there's ever a good time for a weekend double-header on the road, now would be the time. Ball State finds itself in the midst of a six-game winning streak, and the Cardinals are playing some of its best soccer of the season.
"Defensively we've been playing extremely well," Salmon said. "We've also been able to put on a lot of pressure on offense. But as long as we play defense the way we've been playing we're going to be alright."
Ball State started the season going 1-1-2 in its first four games. A major reason for its mundane start was injuries to some of its key players. However, now the Cardinals are playing at nearly full strength.
"We got Emily [Rein] back and that was huge," Salmon said. "We understand that we need to be healthy in order to play our best, and we're fortunate to be healthy right now. But we're still missing Angie Heyer, and she's a huge piece of the puzzle. We're hoping to get her back this weekend, but I think we've dealt with the injuries extremely well."
Adding fuel to the fire, the Cardinals were picked to finish seventh in the MAC a year after Ball State finished second in the conference. Needless to say, the players took offense to that notion.
"We know that we have a pretty big target on our backs due to what we've done so far this season," Holst said. "We were picked to finish seventh in the conference, but we know we're as good of a team as last year.
"We've just tried to come out and prove to people that we are as good of a team as we were last year. It gets me a little more excited to know they wrote us off before the season. We know we're going to finish better than seventh in the conference."
Salmon knows that if her team can win both games this week, and go 4-0 to start off the conference season, her team will be in a great position to prove the doubters wrong.
"We're just taking it weekend by weekend and game by game," Salmon said. "Starting 4-0 would be a great way to begin the conference season. We're doing all the little things well. But we never look at what we are right now as far as record goes, we look at what we want to be."
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