Rice University Athletics
Owls Host Final Two Home Soccer Games This Weekend
10/31/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
THIS WEEK: The Rice soccer team, 10-5-2 on the season and 4-2-1in Conference USA action, returns to campus for two home games this weekend (Nov. 2 & 4) after playing four-straight on the road. The Owls host Conference USA foes Colorado College (9-4-3 overall, 4-2-1 C-USA) and UTEP (10-6-2, 4-2-1) on Friday and Sunday, respectively. Start time against Colorado College is slated for 7 pm at the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium. The UTEP game begins at 1 pm. The games are the final two home appearances for the Owls. Seven Rice seniors will be honored for their service prior to the start of Sunday's contest.
LIVE IN-GAME STATS: Live in-game statistics for all Rice matches are 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 and follow the action.
QUICK ON THE OWLS: Rice is 10-5-2 heading into the final two games of the regular season. The team is tied for third (with both Colorado College and UTEP) in the C-USA standings... The Owls have defeated C-USA rivals Houston, UAB, Marshall and Tulsa. The team tied conference power Memphis and defeated a host of state-rivals including TCU, Stephen F. Austin, Texas State and Lamar. The team's only non-conference losses have all been on the road, to fourth-ranked Texas A&M and to SEC powers Mississippi and Mississippi State... The Blue & Gray averages 17.5 shots per game and the team has maintained a .443 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 has fought through a number of individual injuries to some experienced personnel.
HOME SWEET HOME Returning home is good news for the Owls. In 61 games played on campus at the Track/Soccer Stadium, Rice owns an all-time record of 41-15-5 (.713). The Blue & Gray is undefeated at home this season (7-0-1) and the fans have responded. The Owls are second in Conference USA in average home attendance. The team has averaged 396 fans for the team's eight home games.
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 70-53-10. The two-time Western Athletic Conference coach of the year owns a career college coaching record of 92-69-12. 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 29-15-3. 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.
R P I Time: The NCAA has released its national in-season ratings power index (RPI) reports for Division I women's soccer. The RPI is the determining factor to pick the at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament field. The Owls are moving on up and are now among the top four spots in C-USA. A link to the NCAA's RPI site for women's soccer can be found here: NCAA Women's Soccer RPI
 The 2007 Rice seniors.  | |
HAIL SENIORS! Seven Rice seniors will be honored before the start of the team's final home match against UTEP. Members of this distinguished senior class helped take the program to new heights the last four years. The senior honorees include Samantha Conn (Clute), Katlyn Ferguson (Beaumont), Traci Fraser (Houston), Lindsay Jaggers (Dallas), Beth Martin (Austin), Clory Martin (Austin) and Caitlin Robbins (Houston).
BIG GAMES ON TAP: With Rice, Colorado College and UTEP all having identical 4-2-1 C-USA records, there is a lot on the line for all three teams this weekend. All three teams have qualified for the 2007 C-USA Championship Tournament to be held next week in El Paso, but the seeding for the entire tourney field is still up for grabs. The winner of the tournament earns the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships the weekend of Nov. 16-18.
DID YOU KNOW? Rice is the only team in the league this week playing "two" teams that have already qualified for the C-USA Tournament to be held next week in El Paso.
SERIES PERSPECTIVES Colorado College leads the all-time soccer series with Rice 1-0-0. The teams met for the first time in Colorado Springs on Oct. 6 of last season where the Tigers claimed a 1-0 home win... When the Owls host UTEP on Sunday, the Parliament will have played the Miners more times (10) than any other opponent since the starting the soccer program in 2001. Rice has played UTEP and SMU nine times. (The ninth career meeting with the Mustangs was last week in Dallas.) The Owls lead the all-time series with the Miners 6-3, but it was UTEP that claimed the most recent meeting a year ago in El Paso by the score of 1-0. The Blue & Gray had won each of the last five games in a row before snapping the win streak in 2006.
PREVIOUS OUTING: Owls Top Tulsa On The Road, 1-0
TULSA, Okla. -- The Rice soccer team used an early score from Korey Taylor, and goalkeeper Meghan Erkel with the Owl defenders made the margin stand up on the way to a 1-0 C-USA road win over the Tulsa Golden Hurricane Oct. 28 in Oklahoma. With the victory Rice clinched a spot in the league's postseason tournament that begins Nov. 7 in El Paso... The Owls came out and grabbed the lead early against Tulsa. In the sixth minute of the game, senior Beth Martin served a direct free kick from the left wing toward a crowd in front of the Tulsa goal. The Golden Hurricane keeper came out to make a grab at the incoming ball, but it deflected away near the mouth of the goal. Taylor opportunistically charged in on the bounding ball and needed just one touch to blast a shot to the back of the net. The goal was Taylor's fourth of the year and would be all the margin the Blue & Gray would need. Rice out-shot Tulsa 17-5 for the game, including 8-3 for shots on-goal with a 7-2 advantage in corner kicks... The Rice defense continued its steady play to preserve the team's sixth shutout of the season. The defenders, led by starters Martin, Lindsay Jaggers, Kellen Schugart and Katelyn Ostendorf have not allowed more than five shots in any of the team's last three games. Meghan Erkel, the Owls' freshman keeper, made three saves in notching the complete game shutout.
DIVERSE WEAPONRY: Offensively the Owls seem to come at opponents from all angles. Eight different Rice players have scored goals so far. Through 17 games, seven different Owls have attempted 20 shots or more.
CHASING THE SCHOOL'S CAREER GOALS RECORD: Not only do the 2007 Owls have some scoring punch, some of the top goal scorers in Rice history are starters on the current squad. Four of Rice's top five career goal-scorers are in fact taking dead aim on Sarah Yoder's career goals record (22) set in 2004. Rice's up-to-date list of career goal-scorers are as follows:
Goals
Pl., G, Name, Years at Rice
1. 22, Sarah Yoder, 2001-2004
2. 20, Clory Martin, 2004-current
3. 18, Caitlin Robbins, 2004-current
4. 14, Samantha Conn, 2004-current
5. 11, Erin Scott, 2006-current
6. 10, Ashley Anderson, 2001-2004
t7. 9, Kelly Potysman, 2001-2002
t7. 9, Maria Fadool, 2003-2006
t7. 9, Kate Edwards, 2007-current
10. 8, Traci Fraser, 2004-current
CREDIT THE BACK LINE: The Owls have a lot of offensive weapons, but the team's defenders on the back row have done a sensational job of keeping the pressure from reaching the goal. Rice allows the second-fewest shots per game of any team in C-USA. The defensive crew that features starters Beth Martin, Katelyn Ostendorf, Kellen Schugart and Lindsay Jaggers has worked most of the minutes. Here a look at how the C-USA teams do at limiting the shots per game.
Team, Fewest Shots Allowed P/G
Memphis, 7.5
Rice, 9.5
S M U, 10.7
East Carolina, 10.9
U A B, 11.4
Colorado College, 13.7
U C F, 15.06
Marshall, 15.13
Tulsa, 15.4
UTEP, 15.5
So. Miss, 15.9
Houston, 20.0
PICTURE PERFECT: Rice's latest action photo gallery is available on-line. Check out the Owls in action at the following link: 2007 Rice Soccer Photo Gallery
THIS & THAT: She may be a young freshman, but Kate Edwards is tied for third among the C-USA leaders with nine goals. On Oct. 12 Edwards moved into sole possession of second place on Rice's list for goals in a single season (9). The standout from Westlake Village, Calif., is five goals away from tying the Rice single season record. Her 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 54 saves and maintained a 1.11 goals-against average. Erkel has started every game and played 1,459 of the team's 1,594 minutes (91.5 percent). She registered complete game shut outs against TCU, Tulsa and Houston.
ELSEWHERE AROUND C-USA: It is crunch-time in Conference USA with the league's final matches of the regular season. The C-USA composite schedule for this weekend is as follows:
Friday, Nov. 2
UAB at East Carolina, 2 pm
Memphis at Marshall, 6 pm
Southern Miss at UCF, 6 pm
Colorado College at Rice, 7 pm
UTEP at Houston, 7 pm
Tulsa at SMU, 7 pm
Sunday, Nov. 4
UAB at Marshall, noon
Colorado College at Houston, 1 pm
Memphis at East Carolina, 1 pm
UTEP at Rice, 1 pm
North Texas at SMU, 1 pm
