A first-half goal from Robyn Elliott was enough for the UW Oshkosh women’s soccer team to edge UW-Platteville 1-0, on Saturday Oct. 8 at Pioneer Stadium.
Robyn’s lone goal of the contest came at the 32nd minute mark of the first half when freshman AJ Jackson played the ball to Robyn’s left foot where she then connected on a 10-yard strike to find the back of the net.
Robyn currently leads the Titans with five goals this season. She has scored three times in the last three games.
UW-Platteville (4-8-0, 0-3 WIAC) had 10 total shots, but they were outshot 15-10 by the Titans.
The four shots from Rachel Elliott, three from Megan Paulick and two from Robyn led the Titans.
Robyn said her slight position change has been the factor to scoring goals and creating offensive production.
“I’m now playing attacking-mid and this allows me to focus on being dangerous in the attack,” Robyn said.
UWO head coach Erin Coppernoll said adjusting Robyn’s position was important if the Titans wanted to see improvements offensively.
“Robyn has been instrumental in our play thus far,” Coppernoll said. “We have made some adjustments as to where she starts in the midfield that will allow her to be more mobile and get into our attack.”
Robyn went on to add that her success in finding the back of the net is due to the play of her forwards, but also emphasized how important it is to capitalize on opportunities.
“I play more off of my forwards, which allows us to do ‘give-and-go’s’ and overlapping runs which give us a lot of chances,” Robyn said. “I really try to focus on scoring when I have the ball because sometimes in a game you’re only going to get one or two shots so you have to make the most of your opportunities.”
Coppernoll also noted Robyn has been productive since the change.
“[Robyn] has been very mobile and made great runs into the attacking third and made herself extremely dangerous,” Coppernoll said.
UWO (7-5-1, 2-1 WIAC) kept UW-Platteville scoreless throughout the match, but defensively the Titans struggled, Coppernoll said.
“We were fortunate that Platteville didn’t score,” Coppernoll said. “We had some breakdowns throughout the field and Platteville had many offensive transitions where we were down numbers.”
A season-long trend of not winning the ball out of the air has limited UWO’s success, Robyn said.
“We are not very good out of the air,” Robyn said. “So we are working on playing balls on the ground or through-balls to our forwards instead of balls over the top.”
Due to the performance of freshman goalkeeper Madelyn Runyan, the Titans were able to escape Platteville with a victory.
Runyan has started in only four of the 13 games played, but has received the nod in the last three games. Her last three starts have all come during WIAC play.
“To be honest every game is important to me,” Runyan said. “So although playing in conference games feels great, I still am proud to play in any game we have no matter who the competition is.”
Runyan finished the game with four saves and earned herself a second clean sheet of the season.
Her last shutout came on Sept. 3 when UWO defeated the University of Dubuque (IA) 1-0.
Coppernoll said the Pioneers were a test for the Titans in terms of moving forward in conference play.
“We got a win on the road,” Coppernoll said. “Platteville is a tough place to play and we got a shut out and the win, which is great.”
As for the rest of the season, Coppernoll said UWO is going to take it one game at a time and focus on each team individually.
“We will play each game, day by day,” Coppernoll said. “Our goal is to win the next game and improve on our play each day, we want to be playing our best ball at the end of the season.”