Saint Mary's and Adrian meet Saturday in a conference clash of polar opposites.The Belles are undefeated (3-0-1) and off to their best start in school history. Adrian is winless (0-3-0) and reeling after losses of 1-0 to Goshen, 2-1 to Clarkson and 11-0 to St. Lawrence. Saint Mary's coach Peter Haring believes that establishing early momentum is the key to the game."They [Adrian] are one of the teams that's in the lower tier of the conference," Haring said. "But with the first couple games of the season, really every team is becoming accustomed to it. So if we do our job and start out like we have in the games that we've won we can put a game away really early. "But if we get a situation like here where we let eight to ten minutes go by without getting into our rhythm [like the Belles did versus Calvin], a team can catch us off-guard with a simple mistake."Against Calvin on Wednesday, Saint Mary's controlled the ball from the 25:00 mark on of each half. But the Belles struggled inside the box. Both Saint Mary's goals came from rebounds off of long shots. The Belles wasted multiple opportunities at close range, a problem that they hope to correct."We're developing, passing around real nice, then when we're going to get it to our offensive third, we're playing too strong of an offensive ball," Haring said. "Or we're not giving a good ball to the foot to get that good strike on goal once we possess it and work it around the field a little bit. So that's something that we're going to have to make some adjustments in for the next game on Saturday."Saint Mary's also needs another striker to emerge from their young, talented team. Forward Carolyn Logan and midfielder Jen Concannon are developing good chemistry and the team needs a third offensive option.
