The USCB women's soccer team earned the 7th seed in the Sun Conference playoffs and will travel to 2nd-seeded Southeastern University (Fla.) this Saturday to play the Fire in the quarterfinal matchup. The Sand Sharks will look to play spoiler to an SEU team that is currently ranked number 10 nationally, according to the October 31 NAIA Coaches' Top 25 Poll.
"We made our way into the playoffs and now have a great opportunity in front of us at Southeastern," Coach
Ed Heberling said, "It will be a challenge, but I think our mindset is right for the weekend."
USCB will be looking to erase the memory of a difficult match with the Fire on October 21, when the Sand Sharks dropped a 9-1 decision to visiting SEU. The Fire are led by TSC's top goal scorer, Uchenna Kanu, who last week averaged a goal per 14.9 minutes of play. In the last four games, Kanu has scored three or more goals and has 36 goals and 9 assists on the season.
"Uchenna (Kanu) is a special player. She has the ability to dominate a game," Heberling noted, "They (Southeastern) have a lot of talented players who can create threats from anywhere on the pitch. It will be important for us to play sound defense in order to limit their opportunities."
The TSC quarterfinal matchup will be broadcast at
https://portal.stretchinternet.com/southeastern/ beginning at 11:00 AM Saturday morning.
FIN FACTS
• All home games this season will be broadcast at no charge to viewers via the
Sand Shark Gameday Network on Stretch Internet.
• The Sand Sharks return six starters from last year's team, including all-time leading scorer Hayley Piña and fellow seniors
Karen Pimentel and MJ Orduña. The returners hope to quickly mesh with a talented group of newcomers that includes NCAA Division I transfer
Rileigh Olsen, NJCAA All-American
Melissa Fichtner, and promising freshmen
Allison Schaffer and
Hannah Salus, among others.
• Senior F
Hayley Piña is the Sand Sharks' all-time leader in goals (35), assists (17) and points (87), and she is now the program leader for career game-winning goals, with seven in her career.
• Sophomore GK
Moa Johansson entered the season as USCB's all-time leader in goals against average after posting a 1.53 GAA last season, the best single-season mark in program history.
• Six different players scored goals in USCB's season-opening 7-2 win against Life, and five different goal-scorers contributed to a 5-0 win over Middle Georgia.
• With the clean sheet against Florida Memorial, junior goalkeeper
Courtney Sherry is now tied for 2nd place all-time with
Moa Johansson in shutouts in a season.
• USCB's nine goals against Ave Maria University marked the second-most in program history and the most since a 14-1 win over Florida Christian in 2012.
• With 18 points this season, senior MF
MJ Orduña has moved into second place on USCB's career list with 41.
RELATED LINKS
USCB Schedule and Results
USCB 2017 Statistics
Sand Shark Soccer Record Book
Sun Conference Women's Soccer Standings
USCB Sand Sharks on Facebook
USCB Athletics on Twitter
