Sept. 9, 2004
EVANSTON, Ill. - Through the first two weeks of the season, the Northwestern women's soccer team has two wins and two losses.
Both wins came by four goals.
Both losses came in overtime.
With that in mind, head coach Jenny Haigh and her staff have been preaching the little things this week at practice in preparation for this weekend's matches against Ohio Valley Conference teams Samford and Southeast Missouri State.
The Wildcats will kick off with Samford Friday at 2 p.m., splitting the two men's matches in the Lakeside Classic. On Sunday, the women lead off a tripleheader at the Thomas Athletic Complex at noon.
"We have been training on some things that may seem a little nitpicky this week, but they can mean the difference between winning and losing in some of these matches," said Haigh. "We spent a lot of time working on the big picture during preseason, now we are getting to the point where we need to dot our i's and cross our t's."
Each of the first two weekends have followed a similar pattern -- an overtime loss in the first match, followed by a rousing win in the second. Haigh enters this weekend encouraged by what she has seen so far.
"We are showing up excited and ready to play, and we are competing against some good teams," she said. "We have been in every match. We need to be committed to doing the little things that will give us the margin to succeed."
Samford -- located in Birmingham, Ala. -- comes to Evanston Friday looking for its first win, and will be playing its first match in eight days after having a midweek contest wiped out by Hurricane Frances.
"Samford has had some tough results so far, and so they will be hungry to get that first win," said Haigh. "We need to be prepared to face a team that really views this match as an opportunity to beat a major-conference team on the road. I expect them to play very tough."
Southeast Missouri State, meanwhile, has gotten off to a 3-1 start, with the lone loss coming 2-0 to No. 14 Illinois.
"They have had some solid results already this season," said Haigh. "They are a good team, a blue-collar team that is having success. This will be a great test for us.
"We are playing a pair of teams who are coming in looking for the opportunity to do something big," she continued. "We have to be ready to face that type of attitude. However, we have played some tough teams and been right there with them, so I feel like we are prepared to go into this weekend and play well."
Some notes on the `Cats...
* NU is playing both Samford and Southeast Missouri State for the first time in women's soccer.
* NU is hoping to finish the weekend with a 4-2 overall record; it would be the best start by the `Cats since the 1998 team started 9-0-1.
* Kelsey Hans already has four goals and an assist this season for nine points. Last year's leading scorer, Aileen Guiney, had four goals and four assists for 12 points in the entire season.
* The leading returning scorer from a year ago had eight points (Katie Wright -- 3 goals, 2 assists).
* The last player to score four goals as a freshman was current senior Ashleigh Garmon, who had four in 2001.
* Hans and Garmon are two of just 10 players to accomplish the feat, with the record for goals in a season by a freshman being eight set by Christie Molitor in 1996.
* Hans and Shannon Schneeman have four goals apiece this season. The last time NU had two different players score four or more goals in the same season was 2001 (Garmon 4, Katie Hertz 4).