Cats rolling despite Lipsitz’s sickness

By Alex Mackey

Their leader has been out of commission, but the UK women’s soccer team has kept on kicking.

The Cats are 1-0-1 without their head coach Jon Lipsitz at the helm. UK got its first Southeastern Conference win against Louisiana State on Friday and tied Arkansas on Sunday.

“(The win and tie) didn’t happen by accident,” Lipsitz said. “I would have been surprised if we didn’t win.”

Lipsitz has been sick and unable to coach the team in games for the last few days. Even though he has been out, he has been watching a lot of film and coming up with game plans for both of the games he missed.

“We have tremendous coaches,” Lipsitz said. “I had full confidence they could take care of the game plan.”

With their head coach out, the Cats “finished” both games against LSU and Arkansas. They had been on the verge of winning many of their games, but one fluke and the win would go to the other team.

“Everything is a team effort — all the coaches coach during practices,” said senior forward Stefani Kildare when asked if it was different to play without the head coach.

The Cats have struggled all season to score goals to support Sydney Hiance in goal, who was named SEC Defensive Player of the Week this week. Hiance posted back-to-back shutouts this weekend. She has a 0.6 goals-against average, which is the third best in the SEC. This is the fourth time she has been given this award, the most of any Cat.

The coaches believe the turnaround started two weekends ago, when the Cats played Georgia and Tennessee.

They seemed to have better chances of scoring than Tennessee but could never finish. Once they did, however, it felt like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

And while a weight might have been lifted, the Cats still have a lot more work to do in the SEC if they want to make it to the postseason. They must take their momentum on the road to Alabama and then Auburn.

“It’s tough to keep it going on the road, so we’ve been doing less reps and more resting in training,” Lipsitz said.

The Cats have a tough final five games in the SEC, and feel if they keep up the play they showed this weekend, they have a good chance of making a splash.

“We’ve become the team that no one wants to play,” Lipsitz said.