Hit the Road: UF Soccer Team Gets Six Straight Away From Home
Thursday, August 28, 2014 | Soccer, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- You probably know someone who's set a goal of seeing every state in the nation. If achieved, it usually takes years.
If anyone on the Florida soccer team shares that ambition, then the next four weeks of the UF schedule will knock four states off their list. More important than sight-seeing a few new states, the sixth-ranked Gators want to pile up wins during a six-game, four-weekend stretch that will take them to four different time zones.
Sounds arduous, doesn't it?
“It's not as bad as it looks on paper,” Coach Becky Burleigh said.
Good thing, 'cause this is what it looks like:
* First a swing through the Sooner State, which started Thursday, with dates against Oklahoma (Friday) and Oklahoma State (Sunday).
* A trip to Tallahassee next weekend (Sept. 5) to face rival Florida State, which reached the NCAA title match last season.
* A week later, it's off to Northern California to take on Stanford, the nation's No. 5-ranked team (Sept. 12).
* From Palo Alto, it's down to New Mexico for an 11 a.m. local against the Lobos (Sept. 14).
* And then comes the start of the Southeastern Conference schedule, which opens (fittingly) on the road at Alabama (Sept. 19).
Here's hoping the Gators enjoyed being at home for those two wins over Miami and USF last weekend. They won't be here playing here for another 29 days; not until UF opens its home SEC slate against Georgia on Sept. 26.
Burleigh, though, is correct in that playing six straight road games doesn't mean her players will spend the next three and half weeks living out of their UF-issued duffle bags. They'll come home after the Oklahoma swing. The FSU game is a bus ride for one game and back home. And the NoCal-Albuquerque stops, if nothing else, will be unique.
“You never know what to expect on the road,” senior goalkeeper Taylor Burke said. “What I do like about it is being around the team and concentrating on soccer all the time. When you focus on the task at hand, you can manage any distractions.”
“Traveling doesn't bother me, especially when we get to play some really good teams,” senior midfielder Havana Solaun said. “Plus, I like to see different parts of the country and go to campuses I otherwise would never get to visit.”
Forward Cassie Owens will use those very points as motivation this week. Twenty-two of the Gators will travel and Owens wants to show she's worthy of getting the call.
“The competition here is so good that I don't even know if I'll be going on each trip,” said Owens, a freshman who logged some serious miles just to get to UF after coming from Superior, Colo. “That's going to push me even more.”
Owens is one of just four freshmen on a Florida team that returned its entire starting lineup from a group that won the SEC regular-season crown last season. As far as Burleigh is concerned, a string of roadies isn't a big deal, as long as the players are handling their classwork and are cool with the inconvenience of not sleeping in their own beds.
“After that, soccer is soccer,” she said.
True. In this case, some challenging soccer awaits.
Burleigh was asked which of the upcoming opponents most concerned. The response was predictable one from a coach in her 20th season.
“The next one.”
