Women's Soccer | 9/23/2015 11:25:00 AM
Live Stats vs. Nicholls ABILENE – Abilene Christian soccer takes its longest Southland Conference road trip of the season this weekend as it heads east to the Bayou Country to battle Nicholls and Southeastern Louisiana.
The travel time to these locations is approximately 10 hours by bus in each direction with Thibodaux sitting 668 miles away from ACU and Hammond a mere 654.
Match times are Friday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m., and only Nicholls will offer live stats through its respective web site.
The Wildcats are 1-1 all-time vs. the Colonels with each team winning on its home pitch. Nicholls won the first match, 3-1, in Thibodaux in 2013, but lost 3-0 last fall at Shotwell Stadium.
Baylee Mitchell,
Lindsey Jones and
Maria Gomez scored for the Wildcats, while goalkeepers
Kelsey Dombrowski and
Sydney Newton combined for the shutout on four saves. The ACU defense allowed just eight shots.
ACU is 2-0 vs. the Lions with both contests decided by one goal. The Wildcats won 1-0 in Hammond two years ago and 2-1 last season in Abilene with a come-from-behind victory. Mitchell tied the score in the 34th minute off assists from
Tiffany Ysassi and
Alyssa Gerner.
Gerner then delivered the game-winner in the 70th minute after receiving a cross near the 12-yard line from
Leslie Snider.
The Wildcats enter this weekend at 1-6-2 and are coming off a fortunate 1-1 tie with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in which ACU scored its equalizer (Jones from
Natalie Throneberry) with about three minutes left in regulation. ACU continued to dominate the time of possession into the two overtime sessions, but couldn't get anything else past the Southland's Goalkeeper of the Week Megan Delany, who finished the 110-minute match with 10 saves.
The Wildcats launched 27 shots to 15 for the Islanders; however, two of them hit the underside of the crossbar and Delaney scooped a penalty kick by
Chantal Kinsey in the eighth minute.
Nicholls is off to a 2-4-1 start, which includes a conference-opening 1-0 loss to Lamar. Spencer Valdespino leads the Colonels' offense with eight points and in goal they've utilized a three-goalkeeper rotation of Amanda Boylson (four starts), Taylor Mosley (two starts) and Haley Golden (three games).
Southeastern Louisiana is off to one of the best starts in the Southland at 6-1-1 and last Friday the Lions held on to beat McNeese, 1-0, on the road in Lake Charles. SLU has a potent offense that's already produced 25 goals and its decorated goalkeeper Hope Sabadash has pitched five shutouts to go along with 27 saves and a 0.85 GAA.
