Ladyjacks Open Southland Play
10/1/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 1, 2009
NACOGDOCHES, Texas -
WEEKEND SCHEDULE
SFA at Lamar
Friday, Oct. 2 • 5 p.m.
Beaumont, Texas
SFA at McNeese State
Sunday, Oct. 4 • 2 p.m.
Lake Charles, La.
GAME INFORMATION
This Week: Stephen F. Austin will open Southland Conference play with a pair of road games against Lamar and McNeese State. The Ladyjacks begin the 2009 Southland slate Friday with a 5 p.m. game at Lamar, then head to Lake Charles, La., for a Sunday tilt with McNeese State, scheduled for a 2 p.m. start. SFA wrapped up its non-conference schedule with a 3-6-0 record. Lamar comes into Friday's contest with a 1-7-1 record, while McNeese enters the weekend at 4-5-2.
Last Week: SFA went to halftime of Friday's game at TCU locked in a 1-1 tie with the Horned Frogs. But TCU exploded for four second-half goals to take a 5-2 win and remain undefeated, all-time, against SFA. Freshman Kylie Louw scored the tying goal in the 28th minute with an assist from senior Megan Cash, and the Ladyjacks held TCU at bay for the remainder of the half. But the Frogs' Jordan Calhoun put up a hat trick after halftime, leading the second-half rally for TCU. SFA's Jayne Jahnke scored her first career goal in the 88th minute. The Ladyjacks out-shot TCU, 20-11, and finished with a 10-7 edge in shots on goal, just the third time this season the Horned Frogs have been bested in those categories.
Lamar: The Cardinals opened the season with five straight losses before notching a 6-1 verdict over Texas Southern on Sept. 13. Since then, Lamar has gone 0-2-1, but that stretch includes a 2-0 defeat at Oklahoma and a 2-1 loss to New Mexico State. The Cardinals tied Grambling, 2-2, in their most recent match.
McNeese State: The Cowgirls posted an 0-3-1 mark through their first four games, but have gone 4-2-1 in the last seven contests and are coming off back-to-back wins. McNeese is 2-1-1 at home with wins over Alcorn State and LSU-Shreveport.
Series Records: SFA is 2-0-0 against Lamar and has yet to allow a goal to the Cardinals. The Ladyjacks hold a 16-6-3 advantage against McNeese State and have won each of the last two meetings. SFA is 5-3-3, all-time, against the Cowgirls in Lake Charles.
Coverage: Lamar will provide GameTracker coverage online for Friday's game. Live Stats will be available online for Sunday's game via McNeese State's Web site.
Lamar GameTracker
McNeese Live Stats
Next Week: SFA will open its home conference schedule with games against Nicholls and Southeastern Louisiana. The game against the Colonels is set for Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. SFA will meet the Lions on Oct. 11 at 1 p.m.
NEWS AND NOTES
GIMME FIVE: The five goals scored by Washington State in the Cougars' 5-0 win over SFA tied a program record for goals allowed in a home contest. SFA has given up five goals at home six times in program history. TCU notched a 5-2 road win over the Ladyjacks in their next outing, marking the first time since 2003 for SFA to give up at least five goals in consecutive contests. That year, the Ladyjacks opened the season with back-to-back 5-0 losses at Tulsa and Oral Roberts, but went on to win the program's first SLC Tournament title.
CONSECUTIVE STARTS: Senior Megan Cash sat out of SFA's game against Washington State to rest an injury. That ended a streak of 21 consecutive starting appearances for Cash, dating to last season. In all, she has started in 42 of SFA's 46 contests since she joined the team as a sophomore for the 2007 season. With 26 straight starts, junior Kelli Barnes is the Ladyjacks' current leader in that category. She has started every game for the last two seasons.
AGAINST C-USA: SFA's 1-0 win at Houston marked the program's first victory against a Conference-USA squad since the Ladyjacks took a 4-1 home win against the Cougars in 2006. All-time SFA has four wins against current C-USA members. The other two verdicts were a 4-2 win over Tulsa and a 3-2 win over UTEP. Until this year's victory at Houston, all of SFA's wins against C-USA programs had come at home.
STOPPING THE SLIDE: SFA's 2-0 win at Missouri State halted a three-game losing streak, the Ladyjacks' first such skid since losing three straight during the 2006 season. In the last eight campaigns, the SFA program has posted just three three-game losing streaks and has not dropped more than three straight contests since a four-game slide in 2000.
QUICK STRIKE: When freshman Laura Sadler scored her first career goal 47 seconds into SFA's game against Rice, it marked the fastest goal to start a game in George Van Linder's tenure. The goal is the third-fastest in program history, according to available single-game records, which date to the 2000 season. The Ladyjacks have scored inside of a minute just three times in that span and have scored in fewer than two minutes eight times. Sadler's goal is the quickest since Lauren Fricks put one in the net 38 seconds into SFA's 6-2 win over Nicholls in the 2006 season.
NOT IN THE ZONE: SFA went 0-2-0 at the UTEP Miner Classic in El Paso, Texas, continuing a quirky trend for the Ladyjacks. The city of El Paso sits just inside the Mountain time zone. SFA is 0-8-0 when playing at sites to the west of the Central time zone. Six of those defeats have come in tournaments at UTEP, while the other two were recorded against Colorado College and the Air Force Academy during the 2006 season.
CASHING IN: Megan Cash scored a goal in each of SFA's losses at the UTEP Miner Classic. Five of her six attempted shots over the weekend were on goal. She led the team in shots on goal percentage at .833 on the weekend and is also the season's overall leader, having put 90 percent of her shots on goal.
STREAK-STOPPER: Junior goalkeeper Courtney Bauder surrendered a game-tying goal to Louisiana-Lafayette in the 38th minute. That marked the first time in more than five games for Bauder to give up a goal. Her shutout streak covered five complete games and lasted a total of 561 minutes and 36 seconds, dating to a game against Texas State last season.
WAITING HER TURN: After sitting out the 2007 and 2008 seasons recovering from a knee injury, redshirt freshman Breanne Vernon made an impact in her first game as a Ladyjack. The Calgary native scored two second-half goals in SFA's 3-1 win over Louisiana-Lafayette. She is the first freshman to score a goal in a season-opener since Kelli Wilson scored as a true freshman in the 2006 debut, a 4-1 home win against Grambling.
GRAND OPENING: With its 3-1 win over Louisiana-Lafayette, SFA moves to 7-7-1 all-time in season openers. The Ladyjacks are now 3-5-0 all-time when opening the season on the road. The La.-Lafayette victory is the team's first season-opening road win since defeating Arkansas State, 1-0, in the 2001 opener.
ROAD-TESTED: SFA opened the 2009 season with a 3-1 victory at Louisiana-Lafayette. That win moved the Ladyjacks' road unbeaten streak to six straight games, dating to a 1-0 verdict against Southeastern Louisiana in last season's SLC opener. SFA went undefeated in SLC road games last year (4-0-1), marking the third time in program history that's happened. The team's road unbeaten streak came to an end with SFA's loss at UTEP on Aug. 28.
FRESH LEGS: With 13 true freshmen, one redshirt rookie and four transfers on the 2009 roster, the Ladyjacks have more first-year players (18) than any other team in the Southland Conference. The next-closest rookie total is 15, shared by UTSA and Lamar.
NEW FACES, NEW PLACES: To go along with the 18 first-year players on the Ladyjack roster for the 2009 season, the team played a total of four first-time opponents in nine non-conference games. SFA went 2-2-0 against the fresh competition.
NINE WINS: SFA finished the 2008 season with a 9-7-2 overall record. This marks the sixth consecutive season for the Ladyjacks to pick up at least nine victories and is the program's sixth straight winning season. The last time an SFA squad failed to reach the nine-win plateau was 2002, also the last time the Ladyjacks posted a losing season (7-9-4).
TITLE TOWN: The SFA women's soccer program has brought an unprecedented five Southland Conference regular-season championships back to Nacogdoches. That total is nearly half of the 12 possible regular-season titles in SLC Soccer history.
BUILDING MOMENTUM: Since its beginnings in 1995, the Ladyjack soccer program has compiled an overall record of 126-131-25. However, the Ladyjacks have really turned the corner in the last seven years. Since the 2002 season, SFA is 81-49-14 overall. In that same stretch, the Ladyjacks have gone 47-12-10 in Southland Conference play with three regular-season championships and a tournament title to their credit.
SAFE AT HOME: SFA holds an all-time record of 71-34-12 in home games, but that mark is even better at the current venue. Since moving from Homer Bryce Stadium to the SFA Soccer Complex for the 2003 season, the Ladyjacks are 40-7-5 in home contests. Against Southland Conference foes, SFA is a very tough 23-3-3 at the Soccer Complex.
NOTE: For complete game notes in .pdf format, click here.
-- SFA --
