Coach Logan 10-22-24

UND Head Soccer Coach Chris Logan gives an update on the season.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
And we welcome you back here to HOWK Doc inside
the five oh six Pub at Hugo's Peer Market downtown
Grand Forks. I'm Paul Rolston along with Tim Hennessy, my
colleague and friend, and now we're joined to talk a
little Undy soccer with head coach Chris Logan as the
Fighting Hawks here closing out the regular season at home Thursday.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I was just crazy already, I know, but but
I mean, while not quite ending hopefully.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, we we have plans. But I was just gonna say,
I was checking the uh checking the weather for a
Thursday game for late fall, and we've had snow flurries
before late season soccer games. Sunny, mid fifties, light south winds.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Is that perfect, Chris.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Light winds would be great, A game that would be awesome.
Hopefully the ball is not going to blow in the
goal for the opposition this time. Yeah, we will take it.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Let's look back here from the past weekend. Here from
last Thursday and through the weekend against South Dakota and
Soeth Dakota State on Sunday and the one all draw
against South Dakota. The weather conditions, I mean, I don't
care who you are when it's blowing forty some miles
an hour, it's affecting a lot, and it's whoever can

(01:16):
deal with it. You play to a one all draw
and you took a lead. But you know, again, it
was a kind of a crazy goal, at least from
my perspective that you know, maybe the wind just kind
of fools that ball and it just sneeks past your
goalkeeper who's been sold standing for you all year long.
So kind of how did you see that that Thursday
game that ended in the draw.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, I mean, i'd say we're used to the wind
up here. Yeah, that was one of the windiest games
in eight seasons. It was. It was incredible, and you know,
we got one early and with the wind, and we
were hoping we'd maybe get a second one to kind
of make the lead a little bit more secure because
we knew in the second half when South Dakota had
the wind and they're a pretty direct team, that they
were gonna put bowls in the box, and unfortunately didn't

(02:02):
get the second And then second half, yeah, your your
backs against the wall a little bit territorially because they
can keep pushing the ball down into your end. And yeah,
I mean the goal they scored. If there's no wind
at the time, probably doesn't it isn't even an issue.
But all of a sudden, it picks up pace in
the air and it goes in and it was unfortunate.
But the good thing is, even with that amount of
time left, there was plenty of impetus for South the

(02:25):
coach to go on and win the game, and we
dug in and didn't and didn't give in regardless of
how strong the wind was.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, and I thought you limited during that sequence where
they have the wind, and basically the wind is an
extra attacker in a game like that, you didn't give
any many more clear cut after that, it was pretty limited.
You really put the clamps down.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah. No, I thought we did a good job of
making sure that they weren't getting any easy looks. And
then you know, the last ten minutes of the game,
we kind of went for a little bit and had
a couple of half decent chances ourselves too, But it
was it was one of those where if you could
play the game again, you'd want then to be perfect,
where maybe maybe the wind isn't a factor for us.
I felt like it was a little bit of an

(03:05):
equalizer for South Dakota. But you know, at the same time,
both teams have got to deal with it.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
So Chris, does it change strategy, the wind change strategy
or is it depending on how blustery the wind is.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yet the wind can to an extent because you know,
you can shoot from further out, so you have to
build to block shots from further out to an extent. Also,
the way that you play, We're pretty good anytime that
we can. We have a lot of fast players up tops.
Anytime you can play the soccer ball in behind to
run onto, our team's pretty good at But when there's
a wind with you, the ball just blows out a bounce.

(03:39):
Right when there's a wind against you, sometimes the ball
doesn't go far enough, so it's very difficult to kind
of gauge that. So there really is a knock on
effect with that, especially territorially. But you know, again, both
teams have to deal with these things. And you know,
I actually feel as though, as windy as it is
in Grand Forks, I almost felt as the wind was

(04:01):
an advantage for South to coat because whenever we go
down to Vermilion, it's even more wide open, and the
wind down there is just incredible, And that's from somebody
who's living in so go ahead, Tim, I.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Was going to say, is there any way to use
the wind to your advantage?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah? Set piece, I mean said pieces.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
The wind I should say against Yeah, you have to
you have to be able to keep the ball on
the ground and and kind of drive it low into
people's feet and use your technical ability. And I think
the South DA coach knew how to kind of flood
the areas that we wanted to. You know, we have
some very good technical players in our in the middle
of our field, but they did a really nice job
of understanding where our technical players were in trying to

(04:44):
shut them down. So I give them credit for that.
I think it was smart in their coaching staff. But
there certainly is a way to use the winter your
advantage to an extent, but with the way that our
team has built, it was almost a disadvantage because of
the way that we try and play.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
When you look at the Soeuthakota State game, they took
their chances. You did have chances against a team that
is fairly formidable in league play here in recent years.
So Sunday's game, despite the score being what it was.
I mean, you certainly put your best foot forward against
the Jacks that day.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, And I look at two years ago when they
came up here, and I don't know, really know if
we had many chances against them, maybe just by three.
And it was disappointed to lose by three the other
day because you know, we had at zero zero, they
cleared one off the line and then they scored two
in just over a minute and that was very disappointing
from ours stwannpoint. And then we had the goalkeeper made
an unbelievable save from a free kid from Paula Marino

(05:41):
Diaz the second half, Grace makes a great double save
at the start, and then the game kind of just
is somewhat back and forth, and you know, Sophia Desabello
had a good look to make it to one, didn't
quite connect, and then Amy goes through on goal and
Amy you usually like, this is a goal that doesn't

(06:02):
quite connect it the way it was. And if either
one of those goes in, it's at two to one.
Now we've got them on the back foot, and then
you know, they get the killer goal right at the
end when we're pushing everybody forward. And sometimes in soccer.
You have to say, if you're losing, you need to
find a way to make the game about one more
go and if you get it, then under it. It's

(06:22):
literally like we were pulling the goal. Yeah, and you
know and at that point you know it is what
it is.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
So was you turn your attention to Saint Thomas coming
up on Thursday afternoon? Uh, this is a great game
from a standpoint of you can still do some things
with a win here against the Tommy's on Thursday.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, and we we've set that to our team, as
you know, we've we've really got to be all in
on everything we do on Thursday with we've got to
be executing in front of goal because we've we've missed
more than we probably shoulder the chances of this conference season.
And we know we've got to just tighten things up
at the back a little bit. But you know, we
we we've talked about we need goals, we need goal

(07:00):
we need a production line on Thursday, and then after
that then we need to play the odds with the
playoff shuffle that it's enough to get us in.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah. Here the game on Thursdays here, yep against Saint
Thomas and game time has slated for three in the afternoon,
and like I say, the weather right now, knock one
wood supposed to be pretty good. But one thing is,
and you guys don't make any excuses. You've battled some injuries.
I contend this is me. You can argue differently, but
I do believe Mary Gassaway. Her absence is felt from

(07:31):
set pieces to the spine of the team. You guys
are doing a darn job battling without her. But it
would be nice to have Mary right now and in
some of these games, right.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Oh, it would It would be awesome to me. She
was the best defender in the Summer League and she's
just absolutely superb on all size of the ball. But
we've had people step up, and I think Alicia Marky
has been absolutely incredible. You know, Allison Chatz has had
to go in the back line. She's doing awesome. The
other day, le See McPhail got her first start and
performed admirably. So we got the people trying to step
up and stepping into the positions and doing well. But yeah,

(08:04):
you know, it's it's due a die at this point.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, that's all about college athletics, right or any athletics. Yeah,
people have to step up, and you can't, you know,
complain about somebody that is in there. Move the next
one in.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Right exactly, and you know what, to be honest with you,
his team, as he was mentioning, from my perspective, they've
done a darn good job. But I will say that
she is one of those players. It makes it it's
a pretty big role to fill. She leaves some pretty
big shoes and you just do the best. We again,
but good luck against Saint Thomas and the Tommies. And

(08:37):
if we pick that one up, then we do some
scoreboard watching, hope things break the way, and then we
find our way with a chip chair and a chance
in the Summer League tournament. That's all we want, right.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Oh absolutely, I think once we get worried, I mean,
I think we're at the point now where you know
we were in twenty nineteen. But you know, I think
we got out scored in two games by Denver by
eleven to zero. At this point, the last two games
against Denver we tied, you know, So the point where
we get in, we're the point where we can we
can battle with these teams and actually have a shot.
So we're excited and we're optimistic and hopfore we get
in and can make a run here.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Thank you for this coach, good good luck this week.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, Chris Logan of you and D Soccer, everybody. We're
glad to see him and wish them the best of
luck against the Tommies coming up on Thursday. Well, that's
going to do it for Tim and I here from
Hawk Talk and the five oh six Pub inside Hugo's
Peer Market. Tim, you have a great weekend calling hockey.
I'll call some football with Mike Berg and Jack Michaels
and the entire crew, and we hope people come along

(09:32):
for those broadcasts as well for all of us here
at the five oh six Pub in downtown Grand Forks
inside Hugo's Peer Market, the official grocery store of U
and D Athletics. It's another Hawk Talk in the books.
We'll see you next Tuesday, right back here for another
edition all across the Fighting Hawks radio network