2014 Women's Soccer Championship Central
MOBILE, Ala. - The 2014 Sun Belt Conference Women's Soccer Championship gets underway on Wednesday, Nov. 5 with the first of four matches in the opening round of competition at the Cage in Mobile, Ala.
Top-seeded South Alabama is hosting the tournament for the sixth time and will play in Wednesday night's finale against No. 8 UALR at 7 p.m. (CT). The Jaguars defeated the Trojans in the regular season finale on Oct. 26, 2-1.
USA (16-2-1, 8-0-1 SBC) enters the match on quite an impressive run as the Jaguars are undefeated in their past 15 matches. UALR (11-7-1, 2-6-1), despite its conference record set a school record with 11 victories this season and is one of the league's best offensive teams with 46 goals scored.
The opening match of the tournament features No. 3 Texas State taking on No. 6 Georgia State at 10 a.m. (CT) on Wednesday. The Bobcats (10-6-2, 5-3-1) and Panthers (6-9-4, 4-4-1) also played in the regular season finale with the Panthers prevailing in an upset, 1-0, over the Bobcats.
Lynsey Curry leads the way for the Bobcats with six goals and 15 points. Whitney Ravan leads the Panthers with 18 points and eight goals scored.
The second match on Wednesday pits No. 2 Troy (14-5-0, 6-3-0 SBC) against No. 7 UL Lafayette (9-7-2, 4-4-1 SBC). This is the only matchup of the four to be played on Wednesday that is not a rematch of the regular season finale.
Troy enters the match having won 14 of its past 17 matches. 2014 has been a banner year for the Trojans as 18 individual and team records have fallen. The Ragin' Cajuns are the second best scoring team in the league with 47 goals scored while Troy has allowed just 16, tied for fewest in the league. In their match on Oct. 3, Troy escaped with a 2-0 win over the Cajuns.
The third match on Wednesday pits the two league newcomers against one another as fourth-seeded Georgia Southern (10-5-2, 5-3-1) takes on fifth-seeded Appalachian State (8-10-0, 5-4-0) at 4 p.m. (CT). The Mountaineers fell to the Eagles in the season finale, 2-0.
Nora El-Shami paves the way for the Eagles as she has scored 20 points on the season with seven goals and six assists. Eagle keeper, Katie Merson has played every single minute this year and has allowed just 21 goals and has 91 saves. Sam Childress is the offensive leader for the Mountaineers with 13 points on the year and six goals scored.
The winners from each of the four matches on Wednesday will then have Thursday off before taking back to the pitch on Friday for two semifinal matches. The winners of Friday's semifinal matches will then play for the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. (CT). Sunday's championship will be broadcast by ESPN3.
All matches with the exception of Sunday's championship can be seen live via web streaming on the Sun Belt Conference official website - www.sunbeltsports.org. All streamed matches are free for viewing.