The No. 22 Auburn soccer team (11-4-1, 5-3-0 SEC) will play its last home game of the season when it returns to action Thursday against the University of Georgia at 7 p.m.
Coach Karen Hoppa said there is still work to do before this rivalry game.
"We still need to be a little better defensively on our back four," Hoppa said. "We still got to be better on our spacing and our transition defense."
Junior midfielder Ana Cate said she believes the team is close to being great.
"We just need to get better at the little things," Cate said. "I think overall we have done well by being in every game and not getting blown out by anybody, but we need to work on finishing our easy goals and defending the person that we do not think is going to score, but can."
Auburn will try to add to its home record of 7-1. Georgia is tied with Florida for the league's best road record at 5-1.
Hoppa said playing at home inspires confidence in the team.
"Anywhere in the league is tough to play, and I think for us, we feel like Auburn is one of those places," Hoppa said. "When we get the tougher teams in the league to come here, we get great crowds and it makes for a great environment. The girls are little more confident at home and playing on this field, so we enjoy playing here in front of the home crowd."
Junior goalkeeper Amy Howard said she agrees with Hoppa regarding her take on matches played on home turf.
"I love playing at home," Howard said. "It always feels better when the crowd is pulling for you rather than against you. You always have that adversity on the road that you don't have at home."
The teams split last year's games with Georgia, winning in Athens 2-1 while Georgia beat Auburn 2-1 in two overtimes in the SEC tournament. Georgia has not beaten Auburn in the regular season since 2007.
With three games left for both teams, Auburn needs LSU to lose another game to take the lead in the Western division. If LSU loses a game, Auburn holds the tiebreaker after beating them 3-1 Friday night.
If not, LSU will win the division outright.
Hoppa said they will be keeping an eye on the LSU scores the rest of the season, but it will not matter unless Auburn takes care of its own business.
"We know we will need some help if we are going to win the West from some of the teams LSU has to play down the road," Hoppa said, "but we don't control that. All we can control is what we do."
Howard said it would be nice if LSU lost, but the team can't do anything about it if LSU does win.
"Hopefully things will go our way and we will keep winning while things will work out for us to win the West, but we can only control what we do on the field," Howard said.
Because the Georgia game is the last home match of the season, it will be Senior Night for the Tigers. The four Auburn seniors to be honored are defender Julie King, defender Heather Havron, midfielder Katy Frierson and forward Lydia Townsend.
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