Owls Host UAB In C-USA Tournament Wednesday Night
10/31/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 31, 2005
Conference USA's Women's Soccer Championship website
2005 C-USA Soccer Bracket pdf
Rice Game Notes pdf
Tournament Tickets
THIS WEEK: The Rice soccer team, 10-6-1 on the season and a third place finisher in Conference USA with a 6-2-1 league record, is back home this week to serve as host of the 2005 C-USA Women's Soccer Championship Nov. 2-6. The Owls are seeded third for the tournament and face six seed UAB (8-9-1, 4-4-1) at 7:30 pm (central time) in Wednesday's opening round. The top eight teams in the conference are at the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium competing in the single-elimination event where the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament is at stake. Action begins with four games on Wednesday, resumes with two semifinal games on Friday (5 pm and 7:30 pm) and concludes with the championship final on Sunday (Nov. 6) at 1 pm. A full championship bracket is listed above as a pdf link.
FOLLOW THE MATCH LIVE ON THE WEB: Live in-game statistics for all the tournament matches will be posted live on the world-wide web. At the appointed start times on game-days, go to the Conference USA championship headquarters listed above and link to GameTracker.
CATCH THE CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL ON CSTV: The C-USA Tournament's championship final will be televised live across the country by College Sports Television. Check your local cable listings to view Sunday's 1 pm finale on CSTV.
ABOUT THE OWLS: Rice split a pair of games last week to pick up two points and keep pace with the C-USA front-runners. With six conference wins and a tie the Owls garnered a total of 13 points to tie for third with UTEP in final regular season conference standings. The Blue and Gray earned the three seed for the tournament over UTEP on the strength of the 3-1, head-to-head, win over the Miners on Oct. 23.
Rice averages a steady 18.1 shots per contest and has scored 39 goals in 17 games. The Owls are second in the league in corner kicks per game (6.2) and third in assists per game (2.0). Rice owns wins over three teams, SMU, UTEP and Auburn, that were regionally ranked when the Owls faced them. The team has six losses but a closer look at the those games, however, is in order. Five of the losses were on the road and two were by narrow 1-0 margins. Two of the losses were to Nebraska and Texas, both ranked among the nation's Top 25 at the time. Two other losses are to regionally-ranked squads Saint Louis and UCF. (Check out the latest regional rankings by National Soccer Coaches Association of America rankings and the Soccer Buzz regional rankings.)
BETTER THAN EXPECTED: With 13 letterwinners returning to the roster, including five starters from last season's squad that won a school record 14 games and advanced to the NCAA Tournament, Rice received some preseason attention around the region and in Conference USA. The Owls were picked to finish fourth in Conference USA on a preseason vote of the league's 12 head coaches despite never having played a game in the league. The team did better than expected and finished third. The results of that C-USA coaches' poll are on the pdf version of this release.
HEAD COACH Chris Huston: Now in her fifth season at the helm of the Rice soccer program she started from scratch, Chris Huston has guided the Owls to an established spot alongside the more experienced teams in the state of Texas and the NCAA. The 2004 team went on to set a host of records that culminated with the program earning an NCAA bid and a regional ranking. For the sensational season, Huston was named the 2004 Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year on a vote of the leagues' head coaches. It is her second time to earn the honor after winning the award in 2001. Her 2005 team has set new school records for goals (39) and points (113) to surpass the NCAA team of a year ago. Huston's won-loss record at Rice is 46-41-7. Her career college coaching record is 68-57-9.
The 2005 season may be Rice's first year in C-USA, but it's not the first for Huston. The former North Carolina Tar Heel served as the head coach at the University of Houston for two years after starting that program in 1998. Huston owns a career C-USA regular season record of 22-7-2.
CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT HISTORY: As Western Athletic Conference members from the start of the program in 2001 up until last season, Rice has qualified for its conference tournament every year and finished no worse than the semifinals each time. The Owls reached the WAC championship game in each of the last two seasons and were twice seeded as high as second. The 2002 Rice team, which hosted the WAC Tournament, was seeded sixth and battled its way to the semifinals.
Rice's Conference Tournament ResultsYear Seed Finish2001 2 t 3rd2002 6 t 3rd2003 3 2nd2004 2 2nd
PREVIOUSLY: Last week the Owls went 1-1 on a C-USA road trip. Rice was attempting to knock-off the first place squad in the C-USA women's soccer standings in back-to-back games, but the Blue and Gray fell victim to three unanswered UCF goals Oct. 28 in Orlando. After defeating the previous first place team, UTEP, at home the week before, the Owls were on the road Friday to meet a UCF team that shares the C-USA top spot with SMU. The Knights held their position by scoring a pair of goals in the first half then added a final score in the second half on the way to a 3-0 final. Rice saw its unbeaten streak snapped at four games. The Owls took more shots than UCF in the second period, 7-6, but only two were on-goal.
Rice didn't stay down for long. Redshirt freshman Caitlin Robbins tallied a pair of goals to break her own single season school record and true freshman goalkeeper Adriene Giese notched her fourth complete game shutout as the Rice soccer team blanked Southern Miss 2-0 in the final C-USA league game of the regular season two days later in Hattiesburg. In the 33rd minute Robbins blasted a shot attempt from 25 yards out on the left side. The standout from nearby Lamar High School placed the ball high so that the opposing goalkeeper would have to fight off a hard sun to play the in-coming shot. The ball sailed over the keeper's head and found the back of the net in the top right corner. Rice turned up the offensive pressure to hold an 11-4 shots advantage in the second half. In the 51st minute Robbins controlled a deflection on a 50-50 ball from Maria Fadool, dribbled to the midfield and attempted a shot in front of the goal from well outside the 18. The ball skipped through the right side to double the score to 2-0. Giese made two saves on 11 shots to keep the Golden Eagles off the scoreboard. It was her fourth complete game shutout and the Owls' sixth of the year.
TURNING THE TURNSTILES: Rice soccer averaged 562 fans for 10 home games in 2005, the largest home attendance average for any team in the league. The steady fan turnout helped account for an .850 home win percentage, and the home wins no doubt helped the attendance. The 1,276 fans who attended the 2005 season-opener accounted for the fourth-largest crowd in Rice soccer history. The 1,087 at the Houston match (Oct. 14) is the fifth-largest all-time. The singe-game attendance record is 1,752 for the program's NCAA debut vs. Army in 2001. Rice has also drawn crowds of 1,487 for Texas State and 1,360 for Houston, both in 2001. The highest average attendance for a full season is 815 per game in 2001.
Top Rice Home Attendance MarksOpponent Attendance YearArmy 1,752 2001Texas State 1,487 2001Houston 1,360 2001Auburn 1,276 2005Houston 1,087 2005
HOME SWEET HOME: Returning home to play the C-USA Tournament is good news for the Owls. In 45 games played on campus at the Track/Soccer Stadium, Rice owns an all-time record of 28-13-4 (.667). Rice began the 2005 campaign with a 4-1 record in five consecutive home games, the longest homestand in Rice soccer history.
STREAKING STARTERS: Senior defender Erin Droeger, an all-region and all-conference honoree last season, has started every Rice game in which she has played dating back to her freshman year in 2002. Droeger's career starts now stands at 76 games for the third-highest total in school history. The native from Huntington Beach, Calif., had started 61 consecutive games at one point, but there was no need for the Owls' star to start or play in the 12-0 runaway victory over Texas Southern (Sept. 1). Junior midfielder Vanessa Serrano saw her streak of starting every game in which she has played come to an end at 57 in a row on Oct. 30 . Her 57 starts is the fifth-highest total in Rice history. Sophomore defender Beth Martin owns a streak of 37 consecutive Division I starts that includes her freshman season at Northwestern a year ago. Sophomore Laura Barber's streak of consecutive starts ended at 32-in-a-row on Oct. 9. Sophomore Clory Martin's streak of consecutive starts ended at 25-in-a-row on Sept. 4.
OUR HAT'S OFF: Two different Owls have recorded hat tricks this season. The most-recent occurrence was Caitlin Robbins' three goals against UTEP (Oct. 23). Sophomore Katlyn Ferguson was the first to accomplish the feat this year with the second hat trick in school history. Ferguson scored three against Texas Southern (Sept. 1) to tie the Rice school record for goals in a single game set by Angela Aaker in 2004.
HAIL SENIORS!: Three Rice seniors were honored before the start of the team's final home match against UTEP (Oct. 23). Members of this senior class helped turn a fledgling Rice soccer program into an NCAA Tournament team in three years. The senior honorees were Kelly Brolan (Colleyville), Amanda Garrison (Lexington) and Erin Droeger (Huntington Beach, Calif.).
RICE FROSH RATE: The Owls' 2005 soccer signing class has been ranked among the best in the nation and region by Soccer Buzz. Rice's incoming class under head coach Chris Huston is listed as the top 50 in the country according to the rankings. The class is also the 13th-best among a group of 60+ Division I schools in the central region.
Three true freshmen, Anne Candee (F), Alexa Coralli (MF/D) and Adriene Giese (GK) were in the Rice starting lineup for their college debuts. Rookie Ashley Lucas (MF) came off the bench against Auburn and scored in her first collegiate game. The remainder of the 2005 freshmen class includes Christine Petric (MF), Alison Wittig (D) and Kate Schaeffler (F). Forward Caitlin Robbins is a redshirt freshman after sitting out 2004 with an injury.
UP CLOSE WITH THE OWLS: This year fans will have two ways to get some extra insight to the Rice soccer team via the Internet. Senior Erin Droeger, a member of the 2004 NSCAA all-central region team, will keep a weekly web journal about life as a Rice student-athlete. The players will also be featured one-by-one in the new "Just For Kicks" segment. Fans can check out these features at the following links.
THREE RANKED FOES: The Sept. 18 contest against Texas was the Owls' third game against a ranked opponent this season. That's the most ranked foes Rice soccer has faced in one season since the program began in 2001. The 2002 team played two ranked teams. The 2005 Owls are 1-2 against ranked teams with a 2-1 win over Auburn and a 3-1 loss at Nebraska.
QUICK ON THE COMPETITION: The Blazers of UAB are the defending C-USA Tournament champions from a year ago who advanced to the NCAAs and won their first round game. UAB is led by the 1-2 sophomore scoring punch of Jill Porto and Sally Palmer.
SERIES NOTES: Rice has never faced UAB. The Owls have, however, played a team from the state of Alabama every year since the program started in 2001. Rice is a combined 2-4-1 against teams from the state Alabama, including the University of Alabama, Auburn, South Alabama and Jacksonville State. Chris Huston is 1-1 in against UAB in her career.
