Oct. 23, 2008
Rice Soccer On The Web This Week
THIS WEEK: The Rice soccer team, 9-6-0 on the season and in fourth place in the Conference USA standings with 15 points from its 5-3-0 league record, hosts C-USA affiliate member Colorado College in its final home game of the regular season on Friday (Oct. 24). The start time for the match is set for 7 pm... Rice then travels to El Paso to play longtime rival UTEP on Sunday (Oct. 26). Start time against the Miners is 1 pm (Central Time).
LIVE IN-GAME STATS: Live in-game statistics for all Rice matches are posted on the web. At the start of the game, go to the respective live stats link at the top of this page and follow the text description of the action.
QUICK ON THE OWLS: Rice enters Friday's contest with a two-game win-streak... There are 17 experienced players on the roster, including six returning starters from last season's team that finished 12-7-2 and reached the semifinals of the Conference USA Tournament. The Owls' incoming class of freshmen was rated among the best in C-USA... In a preseason poll of the league's 12 head coaches, Rice was picked fourth overall while sophomore midfielder Kate Edwards was named to the coaches' 2008 C-USA Preseason Team... Rice has the honor of hosting the annual C-USA Tournament at the end of the regular season (Nov. 5-9)... Rice has six losses, but a closer look at that number is in order. Three of the losses were to teams that were nationally-ranked at the time (Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and TCU) and four were on the road. Three of the losses were by a single goal and one was in double-overtime.
HEAD COACH CHRIS HUSTON: Now in her eighth 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 81-61-10. The two-time Western Athletic Conference coach of the year owns a career college coaching record of 103-77-12. 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 35-19-3. She is aided by assistant coaches Nicky Adams (Texas A&M, 2001; sixth year), Justin Zoslow (Vanderbilt, 1986; fifth year) and volunteer assistant coach Craig Waibel, a defender on the back-to-back MLS champion Houston Dynamo who is now in his third season with the Owls.
CENTURY MARK: When Rice defeated SMU 2-1 on Oct. 3, Chris Huston won the 100th game of her coaching career. Upon reaching the milestone victory, the Rice players presented their coach with a bouquet of flowers and a signed soccer ball on the field after the game. Huston's career coaching record includes her seven and a half years at Rice and two full Division I seasons across town at the University of Houston.
REGIONAL RESPECT: With two wins in a row Rice is regionally-ranked in one poll. The Owls are 15th in the latest Central Regional ranking according to the Internet publication SoccerBuzz.com. Here is a quick link to the BUZZ poll:
SoccerBuzz.com rankings page
HIGH R.P.I.: The NCAA released its most-recent Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) on Tuesday, Oct. 21. As expected, Rice is among the top 70 teams in the country. RPI is used to determine the at-large field for the 64-team NCAA Tournament so the higher the better. Here's a breakdown of how the C-USA teams looked after the most-recent reporting date.
2008 NCAA RPI (as of Oct. 21)
24. UCF
42. East Carolina
48. Colorado College
66. Rice Owls
71. Memphis
115. UTEP
140. SMU
165. UAB
171. Tulsa
183. Marshall
219. Houston
241. Southern Miss
SPLIT TRAVEL WEEKEND Yes, the Owls usually play both of their two weekend games at home or on the road. This weekend the team is home-and-away with Colorado College and UTEP, respectively. The reason is this year the Owls (and every C-USA team) are for the first time playing every other team in the conference. Every team has 11 conference games. Eleven league games means it won't be the same number of home and road games, but splitting one of the C-USA weekend series allows all the teams to have a slightly more balanced C-USA schedule with either five or six home games.
HOME SWEET HOME: Playing at home is good news for the Owls. In 71 games played on campus at the Track/Soccer Stadium, Rice owns an all-time record of 48-18-5 (.711). The Blue & Gray is 6-2-0 at home this season and the fans responded. The team is among the C-USA leaders in home attendance by averaging 391 fans per game. After not playing at home for the last three weeks, Rice has just the one home contest on Friday.
SCOTT EARNS C-USA OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK HONORS: Rice junior forward Erin Scott has been named the Conference USA offensive player of the week for soccer the league office announced from its headquarters in Irving, Tex., on Monday (Oct. 20). East Carolina goalkeeper Amber Campbell was named the C-USA defender of the week... Scott scored three goals and assisted on another for a team-leading seven points as Rice posted two C-USA road wins last week. She scored both goals in a 2-1 double overtime win against defending C-USA regular season co-champion UCF on Friday. The Richardson, Tex., native also scored and assisted on the game-winning goal in a 4-0 shutout victory at Southern Miss on Sunday. Scott took a total of four shots in the two games, all on-goal, for a 1.000 shots-on-goal percentage. She maintained a .750 shooting percentage for the week... The award marks the first time for Scott to earn the league's offensive player of the week honor. This season four different Owls have won a total of six offensive/defensive player of the week accolades from the conference office. Rice's offensive players of the week have been Scott, Anne Candee (Aug. 25) and Shelley Wong twice (Sept. 29 & Oct. 6). Goalkeeper Meghan Erkel was named the C-USA defensive player of the week on both Sept. 22 and Oct. 6.
GREAT SCOTT: Erin Scott is in fourth place on the school's list for career goals with 17 and needs just one more to tie for third at Rice. She also has 14 assists in her career and needs one more to tie for second on the Owls' all-time list. The Richardson native is second in career shots (154) and needs 32 more to tie the school record. She has 38 career points and needs 11 more to tie for third.
WARD ALSO A GOOD WEEK: True freshman Hope Ward also had productive week, scoring a goal with three assists for a total of five points. The rookie forward scored what proved to be the game-winner for her first career goal at Southern Miss. Ward then assisted on two other goals against the Golden Eagles and also assisted on Scott's game-winning goal in double-overtime at UCF. Ward's seven assists this season are the most by a Rice true freshman since Anne Candee had nine in 2005.
ENDING ON A GOOD NOTE: Rice defeated league foes UCF and Southern Miss on the road over the weekend to wrap-up a rugged stretch of four-straight conference games away from home. The two victories marked the first back-to-back C-USA road wins for the Owls since joining the league in 2005. Rice's last back-to-back conference road wins was in 2003 as a member of the WAC... Not only did Rice defeat defending C-USA regular season co-champion UCF for the first time in four tries, the Owls also scored a goal on the Knights for the first time.
A TALE OF TWO GOALS: At Southern Miss junior midfielder Shelley Wong added to her growing list of milestones with her team-leading eighth goal of the season. Eight goals in one season is tied for the third-best total in school history... Junior defender Alexa Coralli also reached a milestone on Sunday by scoring the first goal of her Rice career. Certainly a formidable presence in Rice's defensive third of the field the last few years, Coralli's first goal came in the 52nd game of her collegiate career.
PITCHING A SHUTOUT: Almost lost in all the offensive fireworks Sunday at Southern Miss was that goalkeepers Meghan Erkel and Catherine Fitzsimmons teamed for the shutout. The shutout was Rice's third of the season and the team's first since the first week of September.
STREAKING STARTERS: The sophomore tandem of Kate Edwards and goalkeeper Meghan Erkel have been in the starting lineup for every game of their collegiate careers. The duo have identical streaks of 36-straight starts for Rice, the longest on the team. With regards to this particular streak, note that neither Edwards nor Erkel are at Baker College!
CROWDED SIDELINE: Only three Owls, Edwards, Erkel senior Christine Petric have been healthy enough to start all 15 games. The team has been fighting through more than their share of injuries this season, particularly on defense where the backline alone has lost a total of four different starters. In 2008 injuries have forced Rice to rotate a total of 11 different players for starts on the backline. The Owls have had to use 11 different defensive lineups for its 15 games... Last weekend's games at UCF and Southern Miss marked only the fourth this year Rice was healthy enough to start the same four defenders in consecutive games. The starting defensive four last weekend were Alexa Coralli, Stephanie Crain, Kellen Schugart and Korey Taylor... Two weeks ago the team was without the veteran Schugart and the Owls went 0-2. Last weekend Schugart played 190 of the 195+ minutes (97.2 percent)... Junior defender Katelyn Ostendorf, an All-Conference USA honoree on the field and in the classroom, has been sidelined with an injury she suffered in the off-season. Senior defender Chandra Ewing was sidelined five games into the season. Junior Anne Candee had to be assisted from the field in the McNeese State game (Sept. 19) with an injury and it was the same for Ashley Lucas two days later vs. Texas A&M (Sept. 21). Sophomore defender & forward Korey Taylor had been unable to practice due to an injury in the preseason, but has since returned.
SHOW-ME-STATERS: In her first career start vs. Marshall on Sept. 28, Chealsey Russell registered an assist on a goal by fellow freshman and fellow Missouri native Amy Beger. Russell is from Springfield, Mo., while Beger is from St. Louis. Prior to Rice the Show-Me-State duo were longtime teammates for the prestigious St. Louis Soccer Club. After the Marshall victory, Russell said the assist on Beger's goal was almost second-nature. "We've already done that play like a million times," Russell said. "I knew how and where she wanted to go to get open and take the shot."
SMASHING ROOKIE CLASS: The Owls have relied heavily on their freshman class, and the rookies have delivered. Four of the current freshmen have combined for 24 starts... The Owls' rookie tandem of Amy Beger and Hope Ward both started and did well in an extremely intense environment against 17th-ranked Oklahoma State (Sept. 5) before a rowdy crowd of almost 1,400 OSU fans. In Ward's Division I debut against UTSA, the rookie from nearby Kingwood notched two assists in the team's five-goal performance... In the 4-2 win over McNeese State, Beger scored two goals and assisted on another. Not only was the break-through performance the first goals and assists of her career, her five-point day is tied for the sixth-highest single game point total in school history. It stands alone as the most points in a game by a Rice true freshman. Former Owl Caitlin Robbins accomplished the same feat as a redshirt freshman in 2005. Beger is tied for third on the team with 10 points (3 goals, 4 assists)... Freshman forward Annie Kadota was the star of the season-opener, notching the game-winning goal and an assist in her debut at the Division I level. Kadota, one of the Owls' talented newcomers, opened the scoring with a goal and then assisted on another just a over a minute later. The Rice rookie from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., became only the fifth Owl in school history to score a goal in her first career game and she did it just 31 minutes into her collegiate career.
THE OPPOSITION: Colorado College is 11-4-2 on the season and 5-2-1 in C-USA. The Tigers have 16 points in the league standings to hold third place. Sophomore forward Tiffany Brown leads Colorado College with seven goals, three assists and 55 shots. Senior defender Molly Uyenishi is back after earning first team all-conference honors last season... UTEP is 11-5-1 overall and 4-3-1 in conference. The Miners are tied for sixth with 13 points. The forward tandem of Tameka Sumter and Cortney Casey are among the C-USA leaders in goals and shots. UTEP plays across town at the University of Houston on Friday afternoon.
THE COLORADO COLLEGE SERIES: The all-time soccer series with Rice and Colorado College is tied 1-1-0. The teams met for the first time in Colorado Springs on Oct. 6 of 2006 where the Tigers claimed a 1-0 home win. The Owls rallied for 2-1 in Houston last season.
THE UTEP SERIES: When the Owls play at UTEP on Sunday, the Parliament will have played the Miners more times (11) than any other opponent since the starting the soccer program in 2001. Rice has played UTEP and SMU 10 times. (The tenth career meeting with the Mustangs was earlier this month in Houston.) The Owls lead the all-time series with the Miners 6-4, but it was UTEP that claimed the two most recent meetings, both by identical 1-0 scores. The Blue & Gray had won each of the last five games in a row before snapping the win streak in 2006.
ELSEWHERE AROUND C-USA: As expected, the competitive balance in Conference USA has made for an incredibly tight league race. Ten of the 12 teams are tied with matching 1-1-0 records. The C-USA composite schedule for the games this week is as follows:
Friday (Oct. 24)
Tulsa at Southern Miss, 3 pm
UTEP at Houston, 5 pm
Marshall at Memphis, 6 pm
SMU at UCF, 6 pm
Colorado College at Rice, 7 pm
East Carolina at UAB, 7 pm
Sunday (Oct. 26)
Houston at Colorado College, Noon
Memphis at East Carolina, Noon
UAB at Marshall, 1 pm
Rice at UTEP, 1 pm
Southern Miss at SMU, 1 pm
UCF at Tulsa, 1 pm
JUST FOR KICKS: This year fans will have a chance to get some extra insight to the Rice soccer team via the Internet. The players will be featured one-by-one in a question & answer segment titled "Just For Kicks." Fans can check out the feature at the following link: Just For Kicks
WAIBEL LENDS A HELPING FOOT: Over the summer Rice volunteer soccer coach and Houston Dynamo star Craig Waibel made a total of 10 football field goals to help send 30 youths from local hospitals to the Dynamo's SuperLiga semifinal match against Pachuca... Waibel and Houston Texans kicker Chris Brown arranged to have three kids from local hospitals receive free tickets to the Dynamo game for every field goal Waibel could make after the Texans' practice on July 27. With Brown as his holder and coach, Waibel put on a place kicking display. The Owls' volunteer soccer coach made 10-of-14 attempts, including one eye-opening kick from 63 yards. For his effort, 30 local kids got to see the Dynamo in action... Waibel, who helped lead the Dynamo to back-to-back MLS Cup championships each of the last two seasons, has been a volunteer soccer coach at Rice since 2006.
LET'S PLAY THE FAMILY FEUD: The Sept. 5-7 weekend was a big one for junior defender Alexa Coralli. On Sept. 5 the Dallas native returned to the field for the first time in two years after undergoing a redshirt season in 2007. Coralli made her first start two days later against Oklahoma where she defended against her younger sister, Sage Coralli, a starting forward for the Sooners... Alexa Coralli has since made eight-straight starts on defense for the Owls.
WHO'S NEXT: It's another big game next week. The Owls play crosstown rival Houston in the annual battle for the city championship. Rice at UH meet at 7 pm on Halloween night at the Cougars' Robertson Stadium.