Women's Soccer | 8/21/2015 12:55:00 AM
TUCSON, Ariz. – The ninth season of ACU women's soccer gets kicked off this weekend with a pair of road matches against Arizona and Texas-El Paso.
The Wildcats of head coach
Casey Wilson will play Arizona at 9 p.m. (CT) Friday at Mulcahy Stadium in the season-opener for both teams. ACU will then head to El Paso at 2 p.m. (CT) at University Field.
The Wildcats have their biggest roster (29 student-athletes) in the program's nine-year history. Another unique trait of this year's team is the age diversity between the four classes as the inexperience of 10 freshmen is balanced out by three proficient seniors (
Lindsey Jones,
Nicci Nelson and
Rachel Shedd) and a combined 16 juniors and sophomores, the majority of which composed last year's starting lineup.
"There's a lot of experience on this team even among the newcomers with the two transfers (
Danielle Otto and Kilegh Vann) coming in to help," said Wilson. "They and the rest of the freshmen have really raised the bar for us to be more competitive and complete. The depth we have this year is incredible, and I plan to use that to our advantage."
Baylee Mitchell led the team in scoring as freshman with 14 points off the bench and will be joined up top by the likes of Jones, junior
Natalie Throneberry and redshirt sophomore
Leslie Snider, who was a Southland Conference honorable mention and later selected as ACU's Comeback Student-Athlete of the Year award. Snider tallied eight points on three goals and two assists last season.
Despite returning a flood of talented players, the Wildcats were picked to finish fifth this fall in a vote taken by the Southland Conference head coaches and sports information directors. ACU placed fourth last year at 5-4-2 (its second straight winning season vs. the league) with two of its victories coming against teams ranked ahead of them, Sam Houston State (W, 3-2) and Southeastern Louisiana (W, 2-1).
At Arizona, head coach Tony Amato led the Wildcats to their most successful season since 2005. In 2014, Arizona finished with a record of 11-8-2 and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Arizona was picked to finish eighth in the Pac-12 this season.
Sophomore attacker Gabi Stoian has already put her name all over the Arizona career record books. She is currently 10th in career goals (13), eighth in career points (33) and seventh in career game-winning goals (4).
Since Amato took over in 2013, the Wildcats have posted two of their top-four scoring seasons in Arizona history after the 2013 squad found the back of the net 38 times and the 2014 team scored 35 times. Also, his 20 wins gives him the second-most wins in his first two seasons at the helm, just one behind Dan Tobias who collected 21 wins in his first two seasons at Arizona in 2003 and 2004.
UTEP will get its season started Friday at 8 p.m. (CT) against Eastern Washington, followed by Sunday's match against the Wildcats. UTEP is 12-1 in season-openers under head coach Kevin Cross, and they are riding a 10-match (9-0-1) unbeaten streak in the situation.
UTEP brings back seven starters and 14 letter winners overall from the 2014 squad which secured a third-place showing in C-USA for the second time in as many years. The Miners are under the direction of head coach Kevin Cross, who is 173-94-19 in 14 years at the helm of the program. UTEP was predicted to finish fourth out of 14 squads in the 2015 Conference USA regular season, as voted on by the league's head coaches.
UTEP and Abilene Christian will be squaring off for the third time in as many seasons. The prior two contests have gone to overtime. There was a 1-1 tie in 2013 in El Paso while UTEP picked up a thrilling 1-0 road win last year.
