SFA Set To Wrap Up Regular Season
10/29/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 29, 2009
NACOGDOCHES, Texas -
WEEKEND SCHEDULE
Northwestern State at SFA
Friday, Oct. 30 • 7 p.m.
Nacogdoches, Texas
Central Arkansas at SFA
Sunday, Nov. 1 • 1 p.m.
Nacogdoches, Texas
GAME INFORMATION
This Week: The Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack soccer team enters the final weekend of the regular season looking to improve its seeding for next week's Southland Conference Tournament. SFA will wrap up the schedule with a pair of home games. The Ladyjacks host Northwestern State in a 7 p.m. contest on Friday, then take on Central Arkansas Sunday at 1 p.m. The Ladyjacks are 7-8-1 on the year and fourth in the Southland standings with a 4-2-1 league mark. Northwestern brings a 10-8-0 overall record and a 3-4-0 Southland record to the weekend. Central Arkansas begins the week at 7-9-1 on the season and 1-6-0 in league action.
Last Week: SFA played consecutive overtime games for the first time since 2007 and came away with a loss and a tie. The Ladyjacks spent the first 90 minutes of Friday's game against Texas State locked in a scoreless tie before the Bobcats came up with a goal in the first overtime period to take a 1-0 win. Junior goalkeeper Courtney Bauder posted a season-high 11 saves, finishing just one shy of her career-best. Sunday, SFA scored late in the second half to tie the score at 1, but neither team could find the net in two overtime periods. UTSA took a 1-0 lead in the 26th minute. Senior Megan Cash tied the score in the 78th minute, but the Ladyjacks were unable to come up with the game-winner, despite a season-high 33 shots with 18 on goal.
Northwestern State: The Demons opened the season with a strong start, going 7-4-0 in non-conference play. But Northwestern dropped four of its first five Southland Conference games. The Demons are coming off a big weekend that saw them knock off Nicholls, 6-1, then hand Southeastern Louisiana its only defeat of the conference season in a 1-0 decision. That two-game performance kept Northwestern in the hunt for an SLC Tournament spot, as the Demons enter the final weekend of play locked in a tie for sixth place with McNeese State.
Central Arkansas: The Bears are a respectable 7-9-1 on the season, but their only win in Southland play is last weekend's 5-0 verdict over a winless Nicholls squad. UCA ranks ninth in the 10-team league in shots, points and goals, but the Bears have given up the fourth-fewest goal in the conference with 24.
Series Records: SFA is 12-6-4, all-time, against Northwestern State, and the Ladyjacks are undefeated in the last eight meetings. SFA is 6-3-2 in home games with the Demons, but the last Northwestern win in the series came in Nacogdoches, during the 2002 season. The Ladyjacks are 2-1-0 against Central Arkansas, having taken a 4-0 decision in the series' only game in Nacogdoches.
Coverage: Both games will be streamed live via SFA's All-Access portal on SFAJacks.com. GameTracker will also be available for both contests.
Northwestern State GameTracker
Northwestern State Live Video
Central Arkansas GameTracker
Central Arkansas Live Video
Next Week: SFA will compete in the Southland Conference Tournament in Natchitoches, La. The Ladyjacks will be on the hunt for the third SLC Tournament title. Each of SFA's first two Southland Tournament wins came when the event was held in Natchitoches.
NEWS AND NOTES
DOUBLE-OT: SFA played back-to-back overtime games at Texas State and UTSA. That marks just the fourth time in program history for a Ladyjack team to go to extra periods in consecutive contests. The last time it happened was 2007. That year, the opponents were also UTSA and Texas State. All told, the Ladyjacks are 7-8-21 in 36 overtime games in the program history.
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 34 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 130-133-26. However, the Ladyjacks have really turned the corner in the last seven years. Since the 2002 season, SFA is 85-51-15 overall. In that same stretch, the Ladyjacks have gone 51-14-11 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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