Arica Shepard tenses up when she talks about Truman State.
“I just really want to come in here and beat them in three,” she said. “That was one of my goals that I said at the beginning of the year, and I think a lot of people agree with me. Just come in here and kick their butt, because I’m still really mad about what happened last year. It’s pretty embarrassing losing three weekends in a row to the same team.”
The Hornets open the MIAA season with the Bulldogs on Wednesday night at White Auditorium in the home opener. None of the ESU players have ever won a match against Truman, and like Shepard said, last year the teams met for three straight weekends, the Hornets losing all three.
The Hornets have had plenty of experience getting sweeps this season. ESU (10-1) has won in three-game sweeps in eight matches this year, including three sweeps this past weekend at the Central Missouri Challenge in Warrensburg, Mo., the Hornets’ third straight weekend tournament.
“We’re making progress,” coach Bing Xu said. “That’s a good thing for a coach to see. After every practice and every game we’re getting better and better, and trying to reach our goals.”
Senior Megan Koster said the nonconference schedule wasn’t the most competitive — with the Hornets playing three or four good teams in her estimation — but one match certainly prepared the Hornets for the MIAA.
The Hornets lost their only match in the their first tournament in Nebraska-Omaha when they lost to Michigan Tech, 3-1.
“We started pretty strong. We just didn’t finish,” Xu said. “I told the girls, let’s face the facts, we got our butt kicked by them. I think that’s a wake up call and that’s a learning process.”
The loss got Xu’s players attention.
“That one loss is still a factor in everybody’s mind,” Shepard said. “We got absolutely murdered in that game, an overall bad game. If we don’t have anymore like that, I think we’ll be OK.”
Truman has not had the success ESU has had so far this season, but Truman (9-3) has played four ranked teams, losing to three. If the Bulldogs were winless, it wouldn’t really matter to the Hornets.
“I really want to beat them,” Koster said. “Just because they’ve beat us so many times and we couldn’t even beat them once... Maybe even a sweep, that would be nice.”