SFA Opens Southland Tournament Thursday
11/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Nov. 4, 2009
NACOGDOCHES, Texas -
WEEKEND SCHEDULE
Stephen F. Austin Ladyjacks at Southland Conference Tournament
Nov. 5-8 • Natchitoches, La.
No. 3 SFA vs. No. 6 McNeese State
Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 • 4:30 p.m.
Winner vs. No. 2 Southeastern Louisiana
Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 • 4:30 p.m.
Championship Game
Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009 • 1:00 p.m.
GAME INFORMATION
This Week: The Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack soccer team heads to Natchitoches, La., this weekend for the Southland Conference Tournament. SFA enters the event as the No. 3 seed after posting a 9-8-1 season record with a 6-2-1 Southland Conference mark. The tournament begins Thursday afternoon with a 4:30 p.m. game against No. 6 seed McNeese State. The winner of that contest advances to a semifinals showdown on Friday against No. 2 Southeastern Louisiana for the chance to play in Sunday's championship game. The tournament champion earns the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships.
Last Week: SFA knocked off Northwestern State and Central Arkansas in a pair of must-win games at home to finish in a tie for second place in the Southland standings for the second consecutive year. The Ladyjacks answered two Northwestern State goals in the second half with a pair of their own to take a 3-2 verdict on Friday night. Junior Kim Kimmel notched the game-winner in the 84th minute after assisting on SFA's first goal of the contest. Freshman Kylie Louw and junior Camille Royer scored the other two Ladyjack goals. Sunday, Central Arkansas scored an own-goal in the ninth minute that proved to be the difference in a 1-0 decision. SFA out-shot the Bears, 36-4, marking both a season-high for shots attempted and for shot margin.
Tournament Field: Regular-season champion Texas State (13-5-1) enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed. The Bobcats will attempt to become the first team in Southland history to repeat as both regular-season and tournament champion after winning both titles last year. No. 2 seed Southeastern Louisiana (12-4-1) is looking for its second tournament title, having won the event in 1998. Sam Houston State (8-9-2) is the No. 4 seed and will take on No. 5 UTSA (9-9-2) in the first round. SFA's first-round opponent, No. 6 McNeese State, brings an 8-9-2 mark to the tournament.
SFA Against The Field: The Ladyjacks went 2-2-1, combined, this season against the five other teams in the Southland Tournament. SFA defeated McNeese State (1-0) and Sam Houston State (6-0) but suffered a 2-0 loss against Southeastern Louisiana and a 1-0 overtime loss at Texas State. The Ladyjacks posted a 1-1 tie at UTSA. SFA and McNeese State have met in the first round of the tournament twice before. The Ladyjacks are 1-1-0 in such meetings. The most recent first-round game took place in 2006, when the two teams were seeded identically to this year's tournament. McNeese took a 3-2 win in that clash.
Coverage: All five tournament games will be streamed live for free on the Southland Conference Web site via SLC NOW. Sunday's championship game will also be broadcast on SLC TV. Live stats will be available for all games at Southland.org.
NEWS AND NOTES
FAMILIAR TERRITORY: This year marks the fifth time in the history of the Southland Conference Tournament for the event to be played in Natchitoches, La. SFA has made the field in three of the previous four tournaments hosted by Northwestern State and has posted a 4-1-0 mark in those games. Both the Ladyjacks' SLC Tournament championships (2003 and 2007) were won in Natchitoches, and SFA was a No. 2 seed each time.
TOURNAMENT TRENDS: SFA is making its 10th appearance in the Southland Conference Tournament and its seventh straight postseason showing. The Ladyjacks have an all-time tournament record of 5-7-1 with two titles to their credit. SFA has reached the tournament championship game three times, most recently in 2007, when the Ladyjacks won the league's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. SFA is 2-3-1 in its last five tourney appearances. Last year, the Ladyjacks played Southeastern Louisiana to a scoreless tie through two overtimes before falling in a shootout.
TWO FOR THE MONEY: SFA's 3-2 win against Northwestern State marked the first time all season for the Ladyjacks to win a game in which the opposition scored more than one goal. Coming into the contest, SFA was 0-7-0 when its opponent posted two goals or more.
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 (2-0-0).
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' nine game-winning goals this season have been scored by freshmen, with Kylie Louw and Breanne Vernon adding the other two.
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 51 of SFA's 56 contests since she joined the team as a sophomore for the 2007 season. With 36 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 2009 regular season with a 9-8-1 overall record. This marks the seventh consecutive season for the Ladyjacks to pick up at least nine victories and is the program's seventh 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 132-133-26. However, the Ladyjacks have really turned the corner in the last seven years. Since the 2002 season, SFA is 87-51-15 overall. In that same stretch, the Ladyjacks have gone 53-14-11 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 75-35-12 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 44-8-5 in home contests. Against Southland Conference foes, SFA is a very tough 27-4-3 at the Soccer Complex.
NOTE: For complete game notes in .pdf format, click here.
-- SFA --
