Women’s soccer match postponed

In response to the increasing threat posed by Hurricane Frances, the USF women’s soccer team (0-0-1) has rescheduled their game at Jacksonville (0-1-1) to today at noon.

The game was originally scheduled for Friday.

“(Rescheduling) is something that you never want to have to do,” USF head coach Logan Fleck said. “But it’s better than not having a game at all, because we just really want to play. It doesn’t really matter, put (the players) in a parking lot, put up some cones and they’ll play.”

This is not the first time weather has affected USF’s plans. The almost-daily thunderstorms have shortened or cancelled practices on more than one occasion.

“The weather has limited the amount of time we get to be on the field,” Logan said. “But we look at it as a challenge that we can conquer.”

At practice Wednesday, Fleck focused on offense, particularly concentrating on refining the execution of restarts. A restart occurs after play is stopped, either by a foul or when the ball goes out of bounds.

“We are known for our defense and organization,” Fleck said. “And when we looked at the game film against Stetson, we saw there were some restart chances that we missed.”

After that scoreless tie against Stetson on Saturday, a game in which Fleck used 19 different players, Fleck had planned to use this week of practice to get a better grip on a 14-player rotation. But Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating.

Since Monday was an off day, and Tuesday’s practice was cut short due to lightning, Wednesday’s training was the only full day of practice the team was afforded.

“If you want to win a conference title, you have to deal with adversity,” Fleck said. “Dealing with these types of things is an example of that.”

USF will have to deal with a Jacksonville squad that is coming off a scoreless tie of their own against Louisiana-Lafayette.

In their nine-year history, the Bulls are 7-1 against Jacksonville, including a 2-1 win last season. USF has outscored the Dolphins 29-9 overall.

“The first part of our game plan is just to get there,” Logan said. “But we just want to get out of the box quick and we have to be more cohesive. We have to be able to drive the ball to a space and trust teammates to be there. And we must own the midfield, that’s key.”