The biggest uncertainty for the Marquette women's soccer team, which returns almost its entire team next season, entering its first weekend of the spring schedule was who would stand between the posts.

Katie Bissen had started every match in her junior and senior seasons, recording a combined 14 shutouts and earning All-Conference USA Second Team honors each year.

Christy Smith, a 5-foot-7 freshman trying to fill the void of the dependable 5-foot-10 Bissen, made her debut in the team's first two exhibition games of the spring Saturday at Valley Fields.

Smith played every minute of both games, surrendering a goal in a 1-0 loss against Northwestern and a pair in a 2-2 draw against Chicago Cobras Eclipse.

"A lot of girls are a lot bigger than me, and I have to somehow cover that difference," said Smith, who identified her weakness as not being aggressive enough.

Smith seemed confident throughout both games and made few mistakes. She made her best save midway through the second half against Northwestern when she pushed a long range curling shot around the post.

But she could do nothing about the header that glanced into the net off the ensuing corner.

It marked the only goal of a game devoid of scoring chances as both teams struggled to shake off the winter rust.

"It was our first time on the game field all spring," junior midfielder Heather Goranson said. "We finally got to play on grass. We've been playing on turf for the last couple of months, so it was great to just get out there and run."

Marquette's best scoring chance against Northwestern occurred in the first half when sophomore forward Alison Loughrin played a neat one-two with sophomore forward Meghan Connelly, but Loughrin's close range shot was saved.

Marquette head coach Markus Roeders said that defining individual roles, developing players and experimenting were more important than the final scores.

"The result is secondary," he said. "I mean, we want to win, but in the overall scheme, it's more important that we are trying things and maybe making mistakes."

The experimentation was prominent in the second game against Chicago Cobras Eclipse. Roeders moved junior central defender Sarah Uyenishi into a holding midfield role and filled her usual position with sophomore midfielder Michelle Pitzl.

A mammoth forward from the Cobras consistently gave Pitzl problems because of her upper-body strength. At one point in the second half, she merely shrugged Pitzl off before she put away a breakaway goal.

Roeders also let a number of underclassmen see playing time over the course of the day.

"We had four freshmen out there that played for the very first time, and we had another three or four players who played very little last year," Roeders said.

"You try to see how they develop, not just on the field, but how they handle mentally the pressure of playing at the college level."

As for the 2-2 result, Connelly took advantage of a goalkeeper's error to put Marquette in the lead, which Goranson doubled before the half hour mark after she slipped behind the Cobra defense. The Cobras scored off the aforementioned breakaway and equalized off a rebound with five minutes to play.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 12 2005.