Soccer team prepares for season

Freshman midfielder Emily Hotz scored twice in the first half as the women's soccer team rolled to a season opening 3-0 win over Xavier Saturday night at Bill Armstrong Stadium.\n"We want to make the game 90 minutes of pure hell for the other team," coach Joe Kelley said. "I think we did that tonight."\nThe romp started early for the Musketeers as Hotz scored two minutes, four seconds into the game, taking a brilliant cross from junior Stacey Peterson and piercing the ball to the left of Xavier goalie Megan Veith.\nHotz then upped the lead to 2-0 in the 33rd minute, short-hopping a ball from 35 yards past a confused Veith.\n"I had space in the middle and (Peterson) beat the defender out wide and laid a perfect ball right onto my foot and I just one-touched it in," said Hotz about the first goal. "The second goal caught me totally by surprise. I was just throwing it on goal."\nThe two Hotz goals signaled a new style for IU as an aggressive team, dominating possession the entire game. All of last season, only two players, junior Kelly Kram and graduate-turned-assistant coach Tracy Grose scored more than two goals all season. Suddenly, Hotz, a midfielder from St. Louis, had two goals in less than one half of the first game.\n"The first two minutes of the game, they should have known they were outmatched," Kelley said. "I'm really pleased how aggressive we played. We dictated play the whole game.\n"We used our speed and our athletic ability and dominated," he said.\nSophomore Lisa Tecklenburg added the third goal midway through the second half.\nThe aggressiveness was something the Hoosiers stressed after last season, where goals were few and far between.\nIn practice, Kelley has implemented a system in the midfield that freed Hotz for both her goals. Sophomore midfielder Emily Markwell sits back, letting Hotz and fellow midfielder Kram advance into the offense zone.\n"It's definitely something we had been working on in practice," Kram said. "Having Markwell play behind us lets Emily and I push up more so we help the forwards more. So it's kind of like playing four forwards." \nIn 19 games last year, the Hoosiers were able to muster three goals or more only three times.\nA faster, deeper and more experienced team gave the Musketeers all that they could handle, Xavier coach Ron Quinn said.\n"They were very quick," Quinn said. "They were in possession of the ball for the entire game. And that's what soccer is, is a game of possession. And since we didn\'t possess it, we were chasing it.\n"And they got goals. And we got tired."\nWhen Xavier did hold possession, the IU defense stifled the Musketeer attack. Xavier's prolific scorer, senior Annette Gruber, managed only one shot on goal and was marked all night long.\nIU senior goalie Chrissy Heubi stopped Gruber's shot and four others for her first career shutout in only her second career start.\n"There was a lot of defensive pressure," Quinn said. "So as a result of that, we weren't getting a lot of good looks at the goal. \n"And when we did, they weren't for very long."\nAlong with Hotz, who had a strong debut for the Hoosiers, Whitney Butler, a junior from Fort Wayne, also looked impressive in her first regular season action. Butler transferred from Connecticut last spring and has quickly become the leader in the Hoosier backfield.\n"It felt really good to be out there," Butler said. "The offense took control early on so there wasn't a lot for us to do back there."\nBut when there was some clean up work, Butler and the backfield thwarted any Xavier attack.\nFor Kelley, the opener couldn't have gone much better.\n"It was a good start," Kelley said. "There are things we need to work on, but to come out and play the way we did tonight was very encouraging"