The UW Oshkosh women’s soccer team lost two of its three games this past week, as the Titans early-season record now stands at 1-3-1. The team faced two schools from Iowa over the course of the weekend and finished up its week on Wednesday by hosting Carthage College.

UWO fell to Carthage College by a score of 3-0 on Wednesday. The Lady Reds dominated the game by getting off 17 shots, 14 of them on goal.

The Lady Reds started attacking right away as Danielle Noverini scored the first goal in the second minute of the game (2:55).

The two remaining goals came in the second half. Maggie Washelesky scored the second goal of the game in the 55th minute (55:35). Samantha Sisto scored in the 67th minute (67:34) for Carthage.

UWO sophomore Madelyn Runyan and junior Jessica Galason both shared time in goal as they each played 45 minutes there. The two were able to combine for 11 saves for the night.

On Sunday, the Titans held their ground throughout the match and used an early goal to shut out the Grinnell College Pioneers by a score of 1-0.

A penalty kick in the first half by UWO junior midfielder Kendra Jepson proved to be enough against the Pioneers. Jepson scored the team’s first goal of the season during the 28th minute of play.

UWO head coach Erin Coppernoll said she looks for confidence in a player to decide who to put in such crucial situations.

“What I look for is just assertive kids that are confident in themselves that want to be in that pressure moment,” Coppernoll said. “Sometimes I don’t really say who gets to take it. I just wait to see who wants to step up in that moment.”

Jepson, who led the Titans on Sunday with two shots on goal, said the game’s success was formed on the offensive side of the ball.

“Personally, I feel that as a team we did a lot better job at possessing the ball,” Jepson said. “We were able to create more opportunities offensively to goal, which is something we struggled with in Saturday’s game.”

Junior forward Alek Kleis said the success on Sunday was a collective effort from all aspects of the team.

“I believe that our team came out with more fire on Sunday; our bench was loud and encouraging which makes the players on the field pumped up and play on a different level,” Kleis said. “I think that we were able to attack the defense on more occasions which gave us more scoring opportunities.”

This was the third meeting between the Titans and the Pioneers, and UWO has claimed two out of the three games.

On Saturday, Central College defeated UWO by a score of 1-0. The Dutch pulled ahead early as junior midfielder Lauryn Kramer scored the lone goal of the game in the 10th minute.

UWO could only get a total of seven shots off in the entire match. Central College doubled that and attempted 15 shots with four of them being on goal.

Galason and Runyan shared time in goal for the Titans. Galason guarded the UWO goal in the first half and allowed the only shot she faced to score while Runyan protected the Titans’ net in the second period and blocked all three shots on goal.

Going forward, Coppernoll said creating more opportunities on offense and maintaining possession will be vital in order for the Titans to be successful.

“We’ve got to possess the ball better,” Coppernoll said. “We can’t string passes together, and if we can’t possess the ball, we’re not going to create any offense and our defense is getting exhausted because they are working so much because we can’t possess the ball.”

Jepson said when it comes to preparation, it remains consistent through the entire season.

“Whether it be the very start of the season or preparing for conference play, I always train, play, and recover the same way,” Jepson said. “Personally, I treat every training session as if I am preparing for a team like Whitewater. In my opinion, every game should be played as if it is the biggest game of the season.”

Jepson also said while the team has aspirations for a trip to the postseason this year, the team also wants to excel academically.

“It’s always a main goal to make it to the NCAA tournament and to finish out the season number one in the conference,” Jepson said. “In order for these two things to happen we’ve made it a huge goal to always stay focused in practice and keep a positive attitude. As a team, we feel that it is also important to be involved in things around campus and do well in the classroom. We have set other goals off the field like raising our team’s GPA and making sure we attend as many other athletic and campus events.”

Coppernoll said consistency will play a huge factor with the Titans success this season.

“As far as just soccer-wise, our theme is win from within,” Coppernoll said. “Last year, we had kind of a yo-yo season where we’d play really well and then stink it up and then play really well. We need to be focused on playing with passion every game and coming out for every practice and playing with passion, trying to improve every day.”

UWO will host the University of Dubuque (Iowa) on Saturday at 6:00 p.m.