SFA Hits Road For Pivotal Weekend
10/22/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 22, 2009
NACOGDOCHES, Texas -
WEEKEND SCHEDULE
SFA at Texas State
Friday, Oct. 23 • 7 p.m.
San Marcos, Texas
SFA at UTSA
Sunday, Oct. 25 • 1 p.m.
San Antonio, Texas
GAME INFORMATION
This Week: The Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack soccer team will play its most crucial two-game stretch of the season this weekend, when it takes on Texas State and UTSA on the road. The Ladyjacks will meet Southland Conference-leading Texas State Friday in a 7 p.m. match in San Marcos, Texas. Sunday, SFA will take on UTSA in San Antonio with kickoff slated for 1 p.m. The Ladyjacks bring a 7-7-0 overall record and a 4-1-0 mark in league action to the weekend. Texas State is 10-5-1 on the year and 5-0-1 in conference play. The Roadrunners are 9-7-1 overall with a 4-1-1 mark against Southland competition.
Last Week: SFA was dominant in its only contest of the week, blanking Sam Houston State, 6-0, Friday night. Senior Megan Cash scored three goals and assisted on a fourth to lead the Ladyjacks to the win. Her seven points tied for third on the SFA single-game ledger. Freshman Kylie Louw tied a school record with three assists in the game, and junior Kim Kimmel posted the first multi-goal game of her career with two scoring strikes. Junior goalkeeper Courtney Bauder recorded five saves to put up her third solo shutout of the year.
Texas State: The Bobcats are coming off a scoreless tie at Southeastern Louisiana, but they are unbeaten in their last eight contests. Texas State has outscored the opposition, 11-2, in six Southland Conference games. The Bobcats are 6-1-0 in home games. Texas State has the top goal-scorer in conference play in Britney Curry (5), and goalkeeper Mandi Mawyer leads the league in goals-against average (0.32) and save percentage (.913).
UTSA: The Roadrunners opened Southland play with four straight wins that were part of a six-game winning streak, but UTSA is coming off a tough weekend road trip. The Roadrunners took a 3-0 loss at Southeastern Louisiana on Friday, then played Nicholls to a 1-1 tie on Sunday. UTSA is fourth in the Southland heading into its game against Sam Houston State Friday.
Series Records: Texas State and UTSA are the only programs in the Southland Conference against whom SFA has a losing record. The Ladyjacks are 6-9-2, all-time, against Texas State but have won three of the last four meetings. The Bobcats are 7-1-0 in home games against SFA. The Ladyjacks are 1-2-1 in four meetings with UTSA. In the only game in San Antonio to this point, the teams played to a scoreless tie.
Coverage: Live stats will be available online for each game, via the Texas State and UTSA Web sites.
Texas State GameTracker
UTSA Live Stats
Next Week: SFA will wrap up the regular season with a pair of home games. The Ladyjacks will host Northwestern State on Friday, Oct. 30, in a 7 p.m. game. Two days later, SFA will take on Central Arkansas in the season finale. That contest is slated to begin at 1 p.m.
NEWS AND NOTES
HAT'S OFF: Senior Megan Cash recorded the second hat trick of her career and just the 10th in program history with her three goals against Sam Houston State. The feat makes Cash only the third player in school history to post multiple hat tricks. Cash also assisted on a fourth goal, giving her seven points for the contest which ties for the third-highest single-game total in SFA history.
DIAL 9 FOR ASSISTANCE: Freshman Kylie Louw (jersey no. 9) tied a school record against Sam Houston State when she recorded three assists. Louw is just the third player in program history to post more than two assists in a single game and the first to do so since 2001. She currently leads the team with eight assists.
HOME-OWNERS: Coming into SFA's game with Southeastern Louisiana, the Lions were one of three Southland Conference teams to have never defeated the Ladyjacks at home. Southeastern's 2-0 win changed that, making the Lions 1-8-3, all-time, in Nacogdoches. SFA is still unbeaten in home games with Sam Houston State (4-0-0) and Central Arkansas (1-0-0).
SCORE!: The eight goals SFA scored against Nicholls ties for the second-highest single-game total in program history. The Ladyjacks set the record last season with a 10-2 win against Prairie View A&M. The only other time an SFA team has scored more than seven goals was an eight-goal effort against Nicholls in the 1998 season.
THREE-AND-OH: SFA picked up road wins against Lamar and McNeese State on the opening weekend of Southland Conference play, then knocked off Nicholls in the first home game of the league schedule. This marks the seventh time in 12 seasons as a Southland member for the Ladyjacks to go unbeaten in their first three league games. SFA has begun SLC play unbeaten in its first three games in six of the last seven seasons.
FIRSTS: Both of SFA's game-winning goals on the opening weekend of Southland play were scored by true freshmen, Jess Brown against Lamar and Laura Sadler against McNeese State. Four of the Ladyjacks' seven game-winning goals this season have been scored by freshmen.
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 47 of SFA's 52 contests since she joined the team as a sophomore for the 2007 season. With 32 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.
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 130-132-25. However, the Ladyjacks have really turned the corner in the last seven years. Since the 2002 season, SFA is 85-50-14 overall. In that same stretch, the Ladyjacks have gone 51-13-10 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 73-35-12 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 42-8-5 in home contests. Against Southland Conference foes, SFA is a very tough 25-4-3 at the Soccer Complex.
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-- SFA --
