The SMU women’s soccer team face No. 19 UCF, Friday at 7 p.m. at Westcott Field. The Mustangs are coming back from a win against Prairie View A&M last Sunday, which they defeated 4-0 here at Westcott.
The match against UCF will be the first conference match of the season for both the Mustangs and the Knights. The Mustangs now hold a record of 4-4-0, while the Knights have a record of 5-1-2.
The last time SMU and UCF faced off was last year, when the Knights defeated the Mustangs in their last game of the season, with a victory of 2-0 at the C-USA semifinals. UCF has now defeated SMU seven times in history, while the Mustangs have defeated the Knights three times.
The Mustangs have been undefeated in all of their three home games this season. With the help of new teammates, the Mustangs have been able to outscore SFA, UTSA and Prairie View A&M with eight goals for and one goal against all together.
Two freshmen Mustangs have been able to contribute to the 11 goals scored by SMU. Even though SMU fell short on the comeback against Arkansas, midfielder Rikki Clarke was able to get her first career goal here at SMU. Clarke’s second goal came down at the 76th minute while playing Prairie View A&M.
Freshman forward Olivia Elliott, has also helped tally up goals for the Mustangs. Elliot was able ear her first two career goals here at SMU, during the game against Prairie View A&M. Elliott’s two shots on target, out of the five shots that she took, were able to get past Prairie View A&M’s keeper Bianca Garza.
“It was exciting. The first one was good, but the second one meant a lot more to me,” Elliott said. The freshman expresses the joy of her first two goals here at SMU, which were needed in order to defeat UCF.
The Mustangs now leave the past games behind and look forward to the upcoming conference games, and train hard as they know conference games mean the most to the team.
“Every practice we’ve worked on formation, and we are changing it just for them. We know what to do; they’re really fast so we’re just going to try to play with them,” Elliott said.
As the team prepares for the match against UCF, Elliott describes the new plans and changes that are required in order to defeat the knights.
The SMU women’s soccer team will then go on to host Southern Mississippi on Sept. 25 at 2 p.m. on Westcott Field. The Golden Eagles hold a record of 3-4-2 as the season unfolds. The last time SMU and Southern Mississippi faced off was last season, where the Mustangs defeated the Golden Eagles 3-1 in Hattiesburg, Miss.
