Adam Concannon headed out to soccer practice this afternoon and interviewed midfielder Jacob Bushue and head coach Todd Yeagley. Bushue talks about what it was like to be named Big Ten Player of the Week and Yeagley talks about the tough loss to Akron and how his team has bounced back since then.
Jacob Bushue
Adam: You were named the Big Ten player of the week and named to America’s Team of the Week, which is a bigger honor?
Bushue: I mean anytime you get an award like this it’s a pretty big honor. I’m just happy to get both because I’m a team player and especially at my position (Defensive Mid) we don’t get a lot of individual recognition.
Adam: What has been the toughest part of the season for you?
Bushue: Personally for me it was probably the trip up to Notre Dame. I was a little sick and under the weather. It was just really hard to be able to play through being so sick like that.
Adam: So you had an assist and a goal in your last game, which one was nicer?
Bushue: Well for me scoring a goal is always nice because I don’t get to that often with where I’m at on the field and my position. Both were nice but I’m picking the goal.
Adam: The assist did give you the first lead in the game though.
Bushue: Yeah well I’m going to still have to stick with scoring the goal. But giving our team the lead with the assist was nice.
Coach Yeagley
Adam: Did you learn anything in particular from the tough loss at Akron a couple weeks ago?
Yeagley: Yeah we learned that we have to play hard in every game. We can’t take any lightly. We had a lot of guys who were hurt though. And overall we just played poorly that game.
Adam: How nice was it to be able to bounce back with a come from behind win against Oregon State and a shutout of a ranked team like SIUE?
Yeagley: Oh really nice, and good for the team. If we lose one of those games after losing to Akron we’re in a completely different place mentally right now. After the first 45 of the Oregon State game we turned everything around. It’s also hard to stop such a high scoring team like Oregon State. To be able to outscore them in the second half says a lot about our team.
Adam: You open your Big Ten schedule against Ohio State this weekend, who is the toughest Big Ten opponent this year?
Yeagley: This is going to sound cliché but they’re all tough. I mean Wisconsin had the least wins in the conference last year and we went there for a road game and lost. You have to approach all these games the same. None of them are easy wins. I mean these aren’t the days when I was playing and you could have a B game as a team and still come out winning by a few goals. All these games need to be taken seriously.
