For AU Women's Soccer coach Michael Brady, it doesn't matter that his team is 3-1 in its last four games.
The real deal is that the Eagles (3-3-0) allowed Iona's lone second-half shot to become an insurance goal and mustered few scoring chances in Sunday's 3-1 loss to the Gaels (1-3-1).
Brady gathered everyone for a nearly thirty-minute meeting off the field after splitting two matches at Georgetown's Hoya Classic. It was back to square one for a team that had lost momentum and a three-game winning streak.
"We're all kind of at a loss to really figure out where the problem lies," Brady said. "We know we're a good team. We know we have lots of good players with good attitudes and good work ethics. We're just having a hard time maintaining a level of intensity over the course of a game."
That was obvious late in the match. Neither team was a serious offensive threat in the second half, but Iona did just enough to sap the Eagles' energy. Iona forward Maggie Prairie scored her second goal of the match after a bungled AU possession on its own doorstep for the two-goal advantage in the 70th minute.
AU's counters came too late. Freshman Katelynn Donovan challenged Iona goalkeeper Jessica Martin twice with low-rolling shots in traffic in the 77th and 78th minutes, but the AU attack withered away afterward. The only attention the Eagles got after that was due to their own frustration as Brady drew a yellow card a few minutes later for dissension.
But Donovan's opportunities were proof of the confidence earned by the nine-person freshman class. Four started Sunday and five started in Friday's 2-1 win over St. Joseph's (2-4-1). AU's first goal in that match came from a header by freshman midfielder Katlyn Miller as she finished a well-executed play with help from seniors Marcela Ricupero and Lena Winkler.
The newcomer in goal, Andy Gierman, stopped 10 of 13 shots in the weekend's two matches.
Youth, it seems, is not the problem.
"I don't want to make that an excuse," he said. "The freshmen we have all play at a very high level in highly competitive arenas. They're all pretty good players. Their teammates trust them. I'd love to find a simple easy excuse, but we're not going to."
That means injuries won't be an excuse either. Sophomore Irene Karistinos, who had been one of the most reliable defenders, was likely lost for the year after she sustained an ACL injury in the first minutes Sunday.
With health taking a toll it means that the depth Brady praised before the season will have to come through. The bench handled its minutes well on Friday, keeping the game even while Ricupero, AU's leading scorer, rested for the middle third of the game.
She came back to dupe the Hawks 'keeper by lobbing in the game-winner in the 78th minute, her 32nd career goal, which ties her for 2nd in AU history. But it came only after eight reserves got valuable playing time.
"I wasn't consciously not playing Marcie a lot, but when a team's struggling, you've got to try to give other people chances to earn some time," Brady said.
Perhaps the most consistent thing for the Eagles over the weekend was how their opponents scored. All four goals they allowed came out of battles in front of the net. Even if Brady can't pinpoint what exactly is going wrong, some added ball awareness would help.
"We can set it up in practice, but it's never the pressure and intensity," Brady said. "That can't really be replicated. It's just about our kids being confident and energetic and really committing themselves to saying, 'If there's a ball bouncing in the box, I'm going to get there first."
