Editor’s note: The following is a partial transcript from an Illini Drive interview with Illinois soccer senior forward Shayla Mutz and junior defender Christina Farrell.

Illini Drive: We just found out that you guys are off to the NCAA tournament. You guys are going to be playing Mizzou — kind of an interesting rivalry because it’s kind of the border war. We don’t need to play them in football, we could play in soccer. (What are your) overall thoughts?

Mutz: I mean we’re really excited. Like you said, Mizzou is one of our border rivals, and we’ve played them a lot before in the past, and we’ve played a lot of teams like them that play the same style like them so it’d be nice getting matched up against them.

ID: Let’s go back to last week. Big Ten Tournament, just the grind of playing three matches in five days. You guys won the tournament last year. How much of motivational tool did you use for this year coming in?

Farrell: I mean, we knew the feeling, like how awesome it is to win. And we knew that it takes a lot of fight and is all about keeping your body good.

ID: You’re playing three matches in five days. What do you do (on an off-day) to take your mind off a match. And I’m directing this at (Christina) because I have a feeling I know what you were doing Saturday night watching Oregon.

CF: I really don’t like to think about the game until, like, the night before. It’s just mentally taxing so, like, after one game’s over, you just put it past you and just focus. Everyone’s trying to stay up with school and stuff like that. And yes, I was watching the Oregon football game against USC. You really don’t want to start thinking about the game until it gets closer.

ID: First match of the tournament, you played Minnesota. You go down 2-0. You go down to 10 men — or 10 women, I should say. How were you able to fight back in that game? You come back to tie it and you fight in PKs. Your goalie stops three shots in a row. How were able to ride that momentum after being down 2-0?

SM: Well, Janet (Rayfield) told us at halftime to write the headlines, and we knew what we’re going into, and we knew it was going to be a battle. Once we got the first goal, I think it was, we had an understanding and believing that we can win the game.

ID: You personally have started to find your spark, you had two goals on senior day, are you back in a rhythm after being dinged up?

SM: That was my first game back, so I was just excited to be back on the field, had a lot of energy and competitiveness built up in me.

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