Central Michigan University Athletics
Tourney Home Game, Momentum at Stake for CMU Soccer
10/26/2016 12:00:00 AM | Soccer
Cullen Maksimowski, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — As the regular season comes to a conclusion and the Mid-American Conference Tournament looms, there are plenty of hypotheticals, uncertainties and uncontrollable factors facing the Central Michigan soccer team.
The Chippewas are focused on two factors they can control. Finishing off their regular season strong and playing their best soccer heading into the postseason.
Both of those things can be accomplished on Thursday as CMU (13-2-2 overall, 5-2-3 MAC) will travel to Eastern Michigan (6-8-4, 4-4-2) for a conference matchup in the final regular-season game. Kickoff is slated for 3 p.m. at EMU's Scicluna Field.
"We are looking to end our (MAC season) well and make sure we are reinforcing the pieces of our identity that are going to be really important heading into the postseason," CMU coach Peter McGahey said. "We're focusing on some things defensively, jump starting our attack a little bit, and just some little things about our identity that will be critical in translating to the playoffs."
The Chippewas hold the third spot in the overall MAC standings heading into Thursday's game and would guarantee themselves a MAC Tournament quarterfinal game at home on Sunday (1 p.m.) by beating or tying EMU.
"An opportunity to play in front of your home fans, to play the first playoff game in this stadium's history I think would be special," McGahey said. "Those are some of the neat things that are out there but we can't spend too much time looking over the fence because then I think it becomes easy to lose track of what's right in front of you."
Potential first-round matchups up for CMU hinge largely on the results of Thursday's games across the MAC.
"What we can control is putting out the best performance that we can (on Thursday) and just letting the rest of the stuff take care of itself," said McGahey. "We've been very good this season of taking it one game at a time. We can look at the playoffs on the bus ride home."
McGahey said the ability to play in the in the plummeting temperatures of late fall will be an important factor heading into the postseason and is why the team was outside for practice with temperatures in the high 30s on Wednesday.
"I told the team today that you want to be having practices when it's cold," he said. "If you're only practicing when its warm, you're not playing in playoff games, you're not competing to get into the NCAA Tournament.
"Being where we are at this time of year, to potentially have a game in the Mount Pleasant chill, would be quite a privilege on Sunday."
The Chippewas enter Thursday's game ranking first in the conference in points (95) and assists (33), second in goals (31), and are third in goals against average at 0.83.
The Eagles rank third in the MAC in corner kicks, averaging 4.61 per game.
Sophomore forward Alexis Pelafas leads the MAC in shots (90) and goals (15), which ties her for the No. 2 spot nationally with BYU's Ashley Hatch.
CMU midfielder Jamie Rademacher is tied for second in the league with six assists and senior goalkeeper Kristen Knutson ranks second in goals against average (.80) and is third in save percentage (.821).
Ellie Tillar leads Eastern Michigan with five goals.
