Regular season soccer finale, Sunday at SIUE

APSU Women’s Soccer

Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay State University women’s soccer team close the 2010 regular season with a 1:00pm, Sunday, match at future-Ohio Valley Conference member SIU Edwardsville.

The match will be the Lady Govs final tune-up prior to the OVC Tournament when they face Murray State in an 8:00pm, Thursday match in Morehead, KY. Austin Peay will be looking to correct some issues from its final OVC win, last Sunday, at Tennessee Tech, 2-1.

A familiar trend continued in the win at Tennessee Tech, as freshman Natalia Ariza scored the game-winner in the 82nd minute. It marked the third time in Austin Peay’s four OVC wins that the Lady Govs scored with less than 10 minutes to play; doing so against Eastern Kentucky in the 89th minute and Jacksonville State in the 84th minute.

The resiliency by Austin Peay has been sparked by a pair of freshmen, offensively, in Tatiana Ariza and Natalia Ariza, along with a three seniors in the defense in keeper Carley Newman, along with Hannah Jones and Samantha Northrup. Newman has been a stalwart in net, bringing a 0.51 goals-against-average into the final contest, while Jones and Northrup have anchored one of the league’s best back lines.

SIU Edwardsville is playing in their final year as an Independent and is set to join the OVC soccer race next year. Already, the Cougars have had plenty of success against OVC teams, with wins against Eastern Kentucky, Murray State and Eastern Illinois. They are most recently coming off a 3-0 loss at Kansas.

Kristin Dierker and Meagan Iffrig lead the Cougar offense with four goals each, Hope Jones has added three goals and four other players have scored twice. For the season, they have outscored opponents 22-17. Claire Lovercheck brings a 1.12 goals-against average, having allowed 17 goals while making 78 stops in net.