Despite starting the Big Ten season with a pair of home losses over the weekend, Wisconsin remains confident in its abilities as it prepares to travel to Ohio State and Penn State this week.

The Badgers were unable to come away with victories in their first two conference matches, losing 2-1 to Illinois and 1-0 to Purdue. Nonetheless, head coach Paula Wilkins is somewhat satisfied with her team’s play.

“The exciting part about it is I think we put together two halves again that deserved possibly a tie or a win against both Purdue and Illinois,” Wilkins said. “Unfortunately, those halves were in separate games, and we didn’t complete one whole one together.”

Wisconsin played strong in each of the second halves over the weekend after starting slow in each game and trailing at the half. Wilkins also noted that the outcomes of the games were much closer this year after the Badgers suffered 3-0 and 4-0 losses to Illinois and Purdue, respectively.

“I think the next step we have to take is making sure we open up pretty well in the first half against Ohio State,” Wilkins said. “I’m excited to bring our team on the road and hopefully continue improving in the Big Ten.”

Defense strong despite offensive woes

While the Badgers have struggled at times this season to get things going offensively, the defense has consistently played well, allowing only 11 goals in as many games. The defense is led by senior goalkeeper Jamie Klages, who has earned three shutouts so far.

“I think we’ve taken a group effort in terms of our defending all over the field and taken some pride on it,” Wilkins said. “I think our one v. one defending needs to be a little bit better in terms of all over the field. When one thing breaks down, it seems to break down a lot.”

With the start of the conference season, Wisconsin has to adjust defensively to the more physical type of play that is common in the Big Ten, something Wilkins believes her team is doing well.

“I think they are getting a little bit more confidence in terms of playing better teams that are a little bit more physical than us right now athletically,” Wilkins said. “I think other teams have other things on us, and we’re doing better just being a little bit smarter and a little bit better tactically all over the field.”

As a young team, the Badgers may be seeing more physical play than usual as teams believe they can use Wisconsin’s inexperience to its advantage.

“They tend to be a lot more physical with us,” Wilkins said. “We’re still [doing] a little growing into how to deal with other teams physically and how to be physical ourselves.”

Wilkins returns to Happy Valley

As Wisconsin travels this weekend to Penn State, the game will carry extra significance for Wilkins and her staff.

Before joining the Badgers, Wilkins spent 13 seasons at Penn State. She served as an assistant coach for seven years before taking over as head coach in 2001.

In her six years at the helm, Wilkins guided the Nittany Lions to six NCAA tournament berths, six Big Ten regular season championships, two Big Ten tournament titles and a pair of College Cup appearances.

“I’m excited to go back and see the people that I worked with,” Wilkins said. “It was very sad when I left because a lot of people had done a lot of great things for me. I’ll never look past that, but now that I’m at Wisconsin, it’s a little bit different challenge we have.”

As much as Wilkins is looking forward to her return to Jeffrey Field, the Badger players may be more excited as they hope to get a win for her in Sunday’s game.

“I know the players have been looking forward to this, but I think one of my biggest challenges is to make sure that we’re focused on Ohio State,” Wilkins said. “Then, when we get to Penn State, hopefully some of the emotional stuff for me, Pat [Farmer] and Tim [Rosenfeld] will sort of relate to the players and get them excited to get a result there.”

Nonetheless, as much as Wilkins is excited to return to Penn State, she wants to make sure her players view the Nittany Lions as they would any other team on the field.

“There are very good players at Penn State — I obviously know because I recruited them there,” Wilkins said. “However, they put their shorts on one leg at a time just like [we] do.”