The UW Men's soccer team hopes to avenge last weekend's loss to Indiana in a non-conference battle against Marquette. UW plays host to the in-state rival Wednesday, before continuing Big Ten play in Ann Arbor on Sunday against Michigan.
Marquette (6-5-1 overall) comes to Madison after defeating Memphis and Wright State. Junior midfielder Chris Lee leads the Golden Eagle attack with 15 total points including seven goals. Even though this match up is a non-conference game, Assistant Coach Jon Szczepanski feels the intensity will definitely be there.
\There's a lot to be said for in-state rivalries. This has been a very good one for a while,"" Szczepanski said. ""Especially with us, the team experienced a bad loss to them last year. We lost 3-0 at their place last year and we still remember that.""
Playing Marquette will occur right in the middle of the Big Ten season but the players and coaches do not believe it will hurt the team.
""It's nice to be able to sort some players out, work on some things, and to play more as a team and learn each others tendencies,"" junior forward Nick Van Sicklen said. ""But at the same time it's no different from playing a Big Ten game.""
""I think [in-state battles] help, especially in-state rivalries that are so good. As much energy and emotion that goes into Big Ten games, they also go into these in-state games,"" Szczepanski said.
UW will be without leading goal scorer Jed Hohlbein after he received a red card in last week's loss to Indiana, but Van Sicklen may be the player to pick up for Hohlbein.?? Van Sicklen has 11 points already this season with five goals.
Even though the Badgers were shut out by Indiana, Van Sicklen believes that the team is playing well right now.
""I think we need to play quickly and finish our chances right now,"" Van Sicklen said. ""If we can continue to hang around in the middle like we've been doing and giving the ball to Phil [Doeh] and Jed [Hohlbein] I think that we are going to score a lot of goals and right now our defense is playing solid.\
