Owls Host Houston Friday Night At 7 PM
10/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 3, 2007
THIS WEEK: Not only does the Rice soccer team (6-3-1) continue its current-game homestand on Oct. 5, the team opens Conference USA league play. The Owls take on crosstown rival the University of Houston this Friday evening at the Rice Soccer Stadium. Start time with the Cougars is slated for 7 pm.
LIVE IN-GAME STATS: Live in-game statistics for Rice matches will be posted on the world-wide web. At the start of the game go to the respective live stats links at the top of this page.
QUICK ON THE OWLS: Rice is 6-3-1 to start the season. The Owls have defeated state-rivals TCU, Stephen F. Austin, Texas State and Lamar. The team's only losses have all been on the road, to fourth-ranked Texas A&M and to SEC powers Mississippi and Mississippi State... The Blue & Gray average 19.7 shots per game and the team has maintained a .457 shots-on-goal percentage... Senior co-captain Beth Martin was selected to the Conference USA all-preseason team on a vote of the league's head coaches. Rice has five starters back from its 2006 team that finished with a winning 11-6-1 record, but the team is currently fighting through a number of individual injuries to key personnel.
HEAD COACH CHRIS HUSTON: Now in her seventh 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. Her won-loss record at Rice is 66-51-9. The two-time Western Athletic Conference coach of the year owns a career college coaching record of 88-67-11. The former standout at the University of North Carolina 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 25-13-2. She is aided by assistant coaches Nicky Adams (Texas A&M, 2001; fifth year), Justin Zoslow (Vanderbilt, 1986; fourth year) and volunteer assistant coach Craig Waibel, a defender on the MLS champion Houston Dynamo.
THE SERIES: When Rice and the University of Houston met on the soccer field for the first time back in 2001, it was easy to see that a great new rivalry had been born. The Owls have surged ahead in the all-time series 3-2-1 and have not lost in this rivalry since 2002. Both teams are so keen to win this particular game that each meeting has been a closely contested battle. Five of the six Rice-UH soccer games have been determined by a narrow one goal margin. The only time there wasn't a one-goal difference in the score was the 1-1 tie in 2005. If you don't think these two teams get physical, then consider there were almost twice as many fouls called in last year's Rice-UH soccer game (20) than there were in last year's Bayou Bucket football game (11)?
DID YOU KNOW? C-USA play starts this week and it does not get much bigger than hosting the team's crosstown rival, but there's more! The Owls will give away free T-shirts to the first 200 Rice students and the event has been designated as "Camper Day." There is free admission for Rice Soccer campers wearing their camp T-shirt.
C-USA DEFENDER OF THE WEEK Rice sophomore Katelyn Ostendorf as been named the Conference USA defender of the week for soccer the league office announced on Monday (Oct. 1). Not only did Ostendorf play all 90 minutes in Rice's 5-0 win over Lamar last week (Sept. 30) for the team's fourth shutout of the season, the Owls' backline crew did not allow the Cardinals to take a single shot the entire game. Ostendorf was one of the leaders of the defensive effort, but she also had an assist on a goal the Owls scored off a corner kick. This is Ostendorf's first C-USA defensive player of the week honor. Central Florida's Brianna Schooley was named the league's offensive player of the week.
LAST TIME OUT: Owls Thump Lamar 5-0
The Rice forward tandem of Erin Scott and Korey Taylor both scored a pair of goals while Clory Martin and Shelley Wong notched a pair of assists as the Owls' soccer team coasted to a 5-0 win over visiting Lamar Friday evening at the Rice Soccer Stadium.
Rice controlled the tempo, but the catalyst behind the offensive outburst was a defensive move. The Owls finally reversed the trend of losing players to the injury list and for once reclaimed a starter, sophomore defender Kellen Schugart, back to the first 11. The sophomore's return allowed Rice head coach Chris Huston to shift Taylor, a young freshman who had been starting in Schugart's place on defense, back to Taylor's primary position up top.
The shift put the Blue & Gray in business. The Owls enjoyed a comfortable 42-0 margin in shots, including 19 on-goal. The team had four goals in the first 20 minutes, two by the now back-at-home Taylor.
"Kellen had started all last year, but we had to start Kory on defense because we needed her back there," Huston explained. "It's great to see Kellen return. By her going in the backline it freed Korey to go up front and you can see her debut at forward, two goals."
Rice went right to work with an early score and proceeded to add three more goals in the first 20 minutes of the contest for a 4-0 advantage. In the third minute, Wong zipped a short pass to Martin in traffic near the right post and the senior from Austin blasted away on a shot wide across the mouth of the goal but into the side netting for a lead the Owls would not relinquish. In the 14th minute Wong found Taylor open on the right wing. The rookie from McKinney needed only a touch to settle the ball and score on a shot from 12 yards out that beat the keeper to the left side.
In the 16th minute Martin launched a long corner kick from the right side past the keeper's box. As the defense initially followed the ball, sophomore Katelyn Ostendorf deflected back to Scott in front of the goal. Scott broke clear to take the pass and convert on the attempt for a goal from close-range. Rice then stretched the margin to 4-0 in the 20th minute after Taylor connected for her second goal of the night after a long dribble through the center of the field.
Scott gave the Blue & Gray its final goal of the night in the second half. Her second score of the game, in the 71st minute with another assist from Martin, gave the Owls a season-high five goals on the night. The total tied for the fourth-highest goal output in school history. The 42 shots was the fifth-highest since starting the soccer program in 2001.
"(Playing forward) felt great, like being back home," Taylor said. "I had been defensive-minded the whole time and all of a sudden it was 'offense, ready... go!' It was all just remembering the right runs to make and where to be position-wise."
Amid all the offensive fireworks was a pretty steady job by the Rice defenders that came in under the radar. The Owls' entire backline, starters and reserves, did not allow a Cardinal shot for the 90 minutes and the result was the team's fourth shutout in 10 games. Shugart enjoyed her first start since 2006, but hinted the program's proud tradition of defenders may let one get away.
"It felt kind of exciting coming back and starting... exciting and tiring," Schugart quipped. "My fitness is far from where it needs to be right now, but it will get there. It was good to get everybody playing where they're most comfortable. I was coaching Kory on defense this whole time and she might have had a future there, but I guess two goals in your first game is pretty good too!"
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH: Eight different Rice players have scored goals so far. Through 10 games, seven different Owls have attempted 10 shots or more.
THIS & THAT: True freshman Kate Edwards penalty kick won the TCU game (Sept. 7) in the 102nd minute to mark the first time in school history Rice had won an overtime game on a PK. Edwards is one of just five players in Rice soccer history to score a goal in three-straight games, and she's done it twice. The only other Owls to score goals in three-straight games are Erin Scott in 2006, Caitlin Robbins twice in 2005, Sarah Yoder in 2002 and Kelly Pottysman in 2002... True freshman Meghan Erkel has made 27 saves and maintained a 1.33 goals-against average. Erkel has started every game and played 809 of the team's 944 minutes (85.6 percent). She registered a complete game shut out against TCU.
ELSEWHERE AROUND C-USA: There are some key matchups as C-USA gets underway this week. The league's composite schedule for this weekend is as follows:
Friday, Oct. 5
East Carolina at Southern Miss, 4 pm
SMU at Colorado College, 5 pm
Marshall at UCF, 6 pm
Houston at Rice, 7 pm
UAB at Memphis (CSTV), 7 pm
Tulsa at UTEP, 8 pm
Sunday, Oct. 7
East Carolina at UCF, Noon
Marshall at Southern Miss, Noon
Tulsa at Colorado College, 1 pm
SMU at UTEP, 2 pm
