Speaker 1: Postseason catchups and conversations, and for this one, we go
Speaker 1: to Emory University catch up with head women's soccer coach
Speaker 1: Sue pat Burgers she gets ready to hit the road
Speaker 1: to debuke Iowa in the sweet sixteen of the Division
Speaker 1: three Tournament. Welcome back and congratulations.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for having us back. It's great.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, we are firm believers in ritual You know,
Speaker 1: you're on the network. You win heep being on the network.
Speaker 1: I know that you as a coach. Let me ask
Speaker 1: you this, what kind of rituals do you have? I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say superstitions, what kind of rituals.
Speaker 2: You know? Honestly, they kind of evolve.
Speaker 3: Every season is a little bit different, and this year,
Speaker 3: I honestly tried so hard to not have any rituals,
Speaker 3: and for the most part.
Speaker 2: I think I've achieved. I've achieved check, so I don't
Speaker 2: have any.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't like to be rushed.
Speaker 2: On game day.
Speaker 3: Kat and I will meet and I don't want to
Speaker 3: be rushed in that meeting. And I try try to
Speaker 3: get a workout in in the morning so that I'm
Speaker 3: not you know, helps with the nerves.
Speaker 2: But truthfully, I don't really. I've been really.
Speaker 3: Trying to stay away from rituals this season.
Speaker 1: When it comes to your assistant coaches, let me ask
Speaker 1: about this. What is it like having each one of
Speaker 1: them around as a piece of the puzzle to help
Speaker 1: have things fit by the time you get to a
Speaker 1: specific game day.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's fantastic.
Speaker 3: I mean, especially with these big weekends when we're traveling,
Speaker 3: we're just all everybody.
Speaker 2: Is jumping in.
Speaker 3: Once we found out we were in the NCAA tournament
Speaker 3: we were hosting and figured out who we were playing,
Speaker 3: everyone was like, Okay, I'm gonna do a deep dive
Speaker 3: on this. I'm gonna see if there's any penalty kicks.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna look for the free kicks. I'm gonna see
Speaker 3: it if I can screen grab some older games. And
Speaker 3: I mean, every single one of them is just jumps
Speaker 3: in and you know, finds their niche of how they
Speaker 3: can help us, and even you know, and even all
Speaker 3: kinds of last minute things like I called you know,
Speaker 3: Lindy Cobb. Today, Kat and I were doing a lot
Speaker 3: of film and all of a sudden we realized we're
Speaker 3: leaving in the morning.
Speaker 2: We should probably get them breakfast.
Speaker 3: I'm like calling Cob, going, hey, by the way, can
Speaker 3: you help me with breakfast tomorrow? But as we head
Speaker 3: to the airport, so yeah, it's all hands on deck
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: She's the one that gets to stop at Panera right
Speaker 1: there in the Emory village on the way into campus.
Speaker 1: Is that how this works?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I really just left it up to her
Speaker 3: to get whatever makes sense for her on the way in.
Speaker 3: You know, just give us a variety, and you know,
Speaker 3: let's give them an option to eat some breakfast.
Speaker 1: When it comes to traveling and traveling to a location
Speaker 1: that doesn't really have you know, you're going from an
Speaker 1: international airport. I don't think Dubuque has an international airport.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not going from point A to point B.
Speaker 1: How difficult is it. I think that this is probably
Speaker 1: one of the more underreported ideas when it comes to
Speaker 1: post seasons, is getting everybody together, getting everything organized, making
Speaker 1: sure that you don't leave anything behind that you need,
Speaker 1: and going to a place like Dubuque, Iowa. How much
Speaker 1: thought has to go into something like this.
Speaker 3: It is a mad scramble. To be honest with you,
Speaker 3: Monday morning, you're just on the phone with shorts travel
Speaker 3: and while you're on the phone and they're trying to
Speaker 3: for us, we had to look at four airports.
Speaker 2: We couldn't get.
Speaker 3: Into two quad Cities and one other in Iowa. We
Speaker 3: tried Madison, so he ended up in O'Hare unfortunately, So
Speaker 3: we've got to land an O'Hare and then drive three
Speaker 3: three and a half hours to Dubuke. But it was
Speaker 3: a mad scramble because you've got to update all your
Speaker 3: athletes with their you know.
Speaker 2: Names, and their dates of birth and.
Speaker 3: Their middle names and you know. And meanwhile you're on
Speaker 3: hold with the travel agent and she's just searching. You know,
Speaker 3: I got nine people on this flight. I've got eleven
Speaker 3: on this flight. And it's one thing when you're coming
Speaker 3: home from the NCAA tournament to have to spread out
Speaker 3: and send a coach with you know, two or three groups.
Speaker 3: But it's a whole different story when you're going you
Speaker 3: all have to be there together at the same time.
Speaker 1: So how many different groups are having to travel? Did
Speaker 1: you break it up into two? How is this going
Speaker 1: to work out?
Speaker 3: No, we couldn't break it up into two even to
Speaker 3: get closer. So the other airports in Iowa were only
Speaker 3: about an hour away. So we've got our whole team
Speaker 3: on a flight tomorrow morning out of Atlanta into Chicago.
Speaker 3: So there's thirty seven of us traveling together. Wow. And
Speaker 3: then we'll bus will pick us up and then we'll
Speaker 3: head over and we'll get a training session in tomorrow afternoon,
Speaker 3: which will be good.
Speaker 1: Now that you've had a couple of days to sit
Speaker 1: back and think about round one and round two, what
Speaker 1: has stuck with you from the two wins that got
Speaker 1: you into the sweet sixteen.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, one of the things I think I
Speaker 3: meant mentioned to you about like a methodist is you
Speaker 3: know that should happen. However, whether it actually is going
Speaker 3: to come to fruition or not, you don't know, because
Speaker 3: that's those kind of games that can be scary. So
Speaker 3: that one exactly how we had hoped. It was going
Speaker 3: to be three goals first half, three goal second half.
Speaker 3: You know, really were able to go deep into our
Speaker 3: roster to play fantastic plu.
Speaker 2: We knew they were just going to be very good.
Speaker 3: I think it was they were pretty tired when we
Speaker 3: got to the second half because that game before Maryville,
Speaker 3: that was a great game. So we knew that we
Speaker 3: could win, but we also knew they had the number
Speaker 3: eleven up top, who's very creative, dangerous, kind of relentless,
Speaker 3: and we had to stop her, which are you know,
Speaker 3: our team was able to do, our defenders, our goalkeeper.
Speaker 1: So when you look back at the numbers from this
Speaker 1: matchup against the Loots, twenty three shots compared to three,
Speaker 1: eight of them on target, it was just a staggering
Speaker 1: number in the imbalance of how things ended up offensively.
Speaker 1: It was only the one goal that you needed, obviously
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, but twenty three to
Speaker 1: three in shots, eight to two on target.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and looking back and having watched the game, some
Speaker 3: of our shots weren't the greatest, you know, even a
Speaker 3: couple of those that were on frame were a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, the one that we ended up kind of
Speaker 3: scoring off of wasn't the strongest shot. She collected it
Speaker 3: with her feet. I don't really you know what was
Speaker 3: know what was happening when she decided to dribble towards
Speaker 3: the corner of the field, and that's when we were
Speaker 3: able to topoke it away and what he was crossing
Speaker 3: it and then you know, Mihayla got a piece of it,
Speaker 3: just perfectly to Nimmer who just hit it one time,
Speaker 3: but the actual shot coming in was, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of a slow roller.
Speaker 1: Well and at the same time, though, you know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned scouting and how important it is, and you have
Speaker 1: you have a keeper in this instance who is just
Speaker 1: kind of keeping an eye on the ball and kind
Speaker 1: of going away from the far post, and it was
Speaker 1: almost like for it Landy United fans. It was at
Speaker 1: a ninety degree angle, but it was almost like what
Speaker 1: Jamal Tierray did earlier this season for it Landy United,
Speaker 1: where the keeper's kind of focusing on one thing and
Speaker 1: you have a player come in from behind it to
Speaker 1: poke the ball away outside the eighteen so the keeper
Speaker 1: can't handle it, and then you end up getting the
Speaker 1: recycled idea for.
Speaker 2: That one goal, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean before before Woody subbed into the game, are
Speaker 3: one of our assistant coaches, Lauren Burke, had had a
Speaker 3: side conversation with Kat about you know what if you
Speaker 3: know she's going to put the ball down and we
Speaker 3: kind of sneak up behind her, she's going to take
Speaker 3: a punter goalkicker just even put the ball off the
Speaker 3: ground and try to sneak in and I think it
Speaker 3: all kind of stemmed from that side conversation that the
Speaker 3: two of them were having. And you know, Cat told
Speaker 3: Woody before she went in the game and lo and
Speaker 3: behold the details, right, the details.
Speaker 1: What's it like having a Cat on your staff specifically
Speaker 1: because a lot of folks may sit there and look
Speaker 1: at your roster and go assistant coach and you see, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: she's there. What's it like that? You know, that's a
Speaker 1: shocker to come across the board. What's it been like
Speaker 1: to have her as a part of that collective?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's phenomenal.
Speaker 3: I mean just her experience obviously as a player right
Speaker 3: in the world stage, but also as a commentator. And
Speaker 3: she is an absolute loves soccer, loves love, love, so
Speaker 3: she watches everything, i mean, all.
Speaker 2: The EPL games. She's a huge Liverpool fan.
Speaker 3: So it's really neat because we'll talk about trends or
Speaker 3: different styles, or what people are doing now, or how
Speaker 3: they're taking goalkicks even differently, and you know, watching World Cups,
Speaker 3: whether it's the men or the women or the Olympics,
Speaker 3: so it's really need to have those conversations.
Speaker 2: And she's such a student of the game.
Speaker 1: When it comes to output this season. You've got a
Speaker 1: lot of folks that have put the ball in the
Speaker 1: back of the net. I mean, you got Nimer who's
Speaker 1: in double digits. Mikayla camp had nine. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Emily wood All would six, Bazouiti had a handful of,
Speaker 1: Madison Tang had three. You got a lot with three
Speaker 1: and a lot with two. What's it like to have
Speaker 1: all of these different folks contribute to putting the ball
Speaker 1: in the back of the net for you offensively this year?
Speaker 2: Oh? It, it feels so good.
Speaker 3: It feels so good that in any given game, someone
Speaker 3: can step up because I mean we've we've played teams
Speaker 3: where if you shut down their main goal scorer, you
Speaker 3: know that, and you get some looks at the goal,
Speaker 3: there's a great chance you're going to win. And for us,
Speaker 3: you know there they these have been like clutch goals.
Speaker 3: Some of these you know, they might be one offs,
Speaker 3: but they're they're clutch goals. Like Matty Tang with her three,
Speaker 3: I mean, her three goals have been huge goals for us.
Speaker 3: But just you know Nim or Mick Zudi Woodie, those
Speaker 3: guys they are.
Speaker 2: Just born to score goals.
Speaker 3: They just they want to so badly all the time,
Speaker 3: and they have that same expectation for themselves. So but
Speaker 3: to have as many players contribute, uh, it's so great.
Speaker 1: But then you look at you look at things defensively,
Speaker 1: and you look at the rundown. I'm noticing a lot
Speaker 1: of zero's with a lot of the w's that are attached.
Speaker 1: So time to brag on your defense and your keeper
Speaker 1: a little bit here. What's it been like to have
Speaker 1: all of these clean sheets this season to get you
Speaker 1: to this matchup coming up against Laura.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that the tricky thing for our
Speaker 3: defenders and our goalkeepers is that Cat and I were
Speaker 3: defenders in college. Obviously Kat in the world stage. So
Speaker 3: for those poor group of players, we nit picked the
Speaker 3: heck out of them, were probably the hardest on them
Speaker 3: for sure. But I have to say that, you know,
Speaker 3: there's a little bit of a turning point for sofin
Speaker 3: goal where we kind of looked at her and said, hey,
Speaker 3: we need more from you. And our defenders have just
Speaker 3: gotten progressively, progressively better, better and better.
Speaker 2: And I think it's.
Speaker 3: The the intensity with which they're defending as well and
Speaker 3: the knowledge that every you know, especially right now in
Speaker 3: these big games in the UAA games like literally every
Speaker 3: moment matters, somebody's going out to get a throw in.
Speaker 3: You can't relax because, especially like this weekend when we
Speaker 3: play Lours, they have long throws because you know, like
Speaker 3: they have probably three players that can hit a long throw.
Speaker 3: So you can never take a minute off. And I
Speaker 3: think our defenders have just locked in so hard.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Lauris, we'll go ahead and go there. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned one aspect of study hall. What's the rest
Speaker 1: of study hall been like? Getting ready for Laura's college
Speaker 1: up there.
Speaker 3: They are very opportunistic, really will take half chances like
Speaker 3: mad I mean, and they're pretty direct style of soccer.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of long balls, a lot of
Speaker 3: long serves and.
Speaker 2: Flicks and kick it forward.
Speaker 3: And then around the goal. They're opportunistic. You know, they'll
Speaker 3: they'll just get a piece of it, they'll get a
Speaker 3: foot in there, they'll run through it with their body.
Speaker 3: You know, they're dangerous. On corners, they play differently than
Speaker 3: we've seen. They play with a deep sweeper, like a
Speaker 3: twenty yard sweeper. So half of the film I'm watching
Speaker 3: there's another player there that you can't see. So that's
Speaker 3: very different and more man marking than you know we
Speaker 3: traditionally see. So it's definitely gonna be different, but kind
Speaker 3: of a whole new challenge, which is exciting in and
Speaker 3: of itself.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask with a challenge like this
Speaker 1: where you're saying, okay, long throw and long serve sweeper
Speaker 1: playing you know further back, when you have all of
Speaker 1: these different variables coming at you. Obviously, it's kind of
Speaker 1: the things that coaches live for in these situations to
Speaker 1: have those kinds of mental challenges. But you don't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of time to impress that information upon
Speaker 1: your club so they can be prepared. That's what's it
Speaker 1: like having to get all of that information into a
Speaker 1: very short period of time, noticing that there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of different things you have to account for that
Speaker 1: are different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little bit stressful to be thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 3: we've got to hit all of these things. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, kind of you know, you want to
Speaker 3: play to your own strengths, right, so you don't want
Speaker 3: to diminish your team's strengths. You don't want them for
Speaker 3: one minute to change.
Speaker 2: The way they play.
Speaker 3: But you also have to realize how you clear a
Speaker 3: ball really matters. It really matters that you get your
Speaker 3: hips around the ball and you clear it inside the field,
Speaker 3: because if you just clear it in your defensive third,
Speaker 3: that ball's coming right into the box on a long throw.
Speaker 3: So you know, and the details matter, but you have
Speaker 3: to stay focus on yourself and what you do well
Speaker 3: while understanding what you're about to see.
Speaker 1: Going into this particular weekend, you had some players, you
Speaker 1: had a handful of players that got recognized by the
Speaker 1: conference for the work that they were able to do
Speaker 1: this season. What's it like to get these players recognized
Speaker 1: for what they were able to do this season in
Speaker 1: the UAA eleven clean sheets but with all the different
Speaker 1: goal scorers and all that kind of stuff, you had
Speaker 1: a lot of recognition coming out there.
Speaker 3: We did we did, which was fantastic, And I think
Speaker 3: that's always a tough thing is to figure out who
Speaker 3: to nominate.
Speaker 2: That's always so hard.
Speaker 3: But with Michelle being Defender of the Year first team fantastic,
Speaker 3: Nimmer clearly deserved it with as many goals as she's
Speaker 3: put on board, and Chase Kaufman getting first team is
Speaker 3: just couldn't is kind of storybook because Chase freshman sophomore,
Speaker 3: you know, contributed but less minutes than her junior year.
Speaker 3: She unfortunately tore her so wasn't able to play, and
Speaker 3: she just came back so ready and has just had
Speaker 3: a phenomenal, phenomenal season. And to have that recognition for
Speaker 3: her and for all of them, but that that just
Speaker 3: like I said, it's storybook.
Speaker 2: So and then of.
Speaker 3: Course with Mikayla and Claudia getting honorable mention, you know,
Speaker 3: they have just been so consistent all season long and
Speaker 3: so good, and especially with Mikayla being a freshman and
Speaker 3: being able to come in here and turn.
Speaker 2: Heads in the UAA. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: And you have a lot of young players, freshmen and
Speaker 1: sophomores as a part of this roster that aren't playing
Speaker 1: like freshmen and sophomores now. They're playing more like those
Speaker 1: rising the rising freshmen heading to sophomore year, the rising
Speaker 1: sophomore heading to junior year. They're playing like they've been
Speaker 1: around for a while, and that experience obviously helps as
Speaker 1: you go into a postseason where the youngins aren't young
Speaker 1: on the field.
Speaker 3: Anymore anymore, no, no, and they're playing with so much
Speaker 3: more composure and also understanding what is needed in any
Speaker 3: given moment of the game, and to be able to
Speaker 3: even just say something to them on the field, like, hey, right,
Speaker 3: in this situation, we've really got to keep the ball.
Speaker 3: And then some bouncing ball comes into them and they
Speaker 3: bring it down and they pick their head up and
Speaker 3: they keep the ball in the final third instead of
Speaker 3: just you know, serving it into maybe one runner. So
Speaker 3: they've really progressed throughout the season, and I'm grateful that
Speaker 3: they have because we really need them.
Speaker 1: Emery heading to Dubuque to take on the Do Hawks
Speaker 1: of Laura's College, and I had to do some research
Speaker 1: to find out why it's a DO Hawk. It had
Speaker 1: to do with early days of the college under a
Speaker 1: different name, and since they were based in Dubuque, it
Speaker 1: was the Dubuque Hawks, thus the DO Hawks. So I
Speaker 1: would literally in my research and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what's a DO Hawk. It's a hawk from Dubuque. And
Speaker 1: so that was where I got my lesson when it
Speaker 1: came to the visitors safe travels Coach. It's two o'clock
Speaker 1: on Saturday afternoon in Dubuque against Laura's third round NCAA
Speaker 1: Division three Tournament. Thanks for everything that you guys have
Speaker 1: done so far to get all of our coverage on
Speaker 1: SDH to the third round. Good luck, be safe and
Speaker 1: we'll catch up with you on the flip side.
Speaker 2: Great thanks so much,