JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - The Carson-Newman women's soccer team (2-1) opens South Atlantic Conference play Wednesday night as the No. 24 Lenoir-Rhyne Bears (3-1) come to McCown Field for a 5 p.m. kickoff.
The Bears enter the contest riding a two-game winning streak after knocking off South Carolina Aiken 8-0 and a 6-0 drumming of Union (Tenn.), while the Eagles are coming off a physical 2-1 loss to Ohio Dominican last Friday.
Carson-Newman finished 11th in the SAC last season while L-R won the regular season conference title and advanced to the Southeast regional championship in the NCAA Tournament before falling to Columbus State 1-0.
"It's going to be one of the toughest matches in conference with them being picked to win the league. I think for us there has to be more maturity in the back. We have lots of options We'll have to be smart about how we handle Alequine up top," coach Richard Moodie said ahead of the contest. "I don't think we haven't played bad; even against Ohio Dominican, it was a great performance. For us, we have to motivated, energetic and willing to play for 90 minutes."
Lenoir-Rhyne is a high-powered offense that has tallied 16 scores in the first four games of the season, while conceding only three goals. The Bears are led by senior forward Leah Mullins who was named the SAC's Player of the Week after a six-goal week in the wins over Aiken and Union; Mullins tallied a hat trick in each contest.
Fellow seniors Garcele Alequine and Emmi Dunn have scored over two goals in the Bears' first four contests. Alequine has four goals this year with a hat trick against Union and Dunn has three goals on the year.
The Carson-Newman offense has been by committee three matches into the year. Six different players have recorded a goal. Freshman Holly Talbut-Smith (Crawley, England) and sophomore Camilla Olsson (Trondheim, Norway) have both recorded 10 or more shots; Talbut-Smith is tied for 10th in the SAC with her 11 shots.
L-R has conceded only three goals on the year and are led by junior Andrea Leano in goal. Leano has 11 saves and has started all four of the Bears' matches. The Eagles trail in the series as they have won 11 of the 34 times the two long time SAC programs have met; Lenoir-Rhyne owns 19 wins in the series and the two teams have tied three times. L-R has won the last seven contests, dating back to C-N's last win coming 2009 in the SAC Tournament with the Eagles picking up a 3-1 result.
Carson-Newman and Lenior-Rhyne kick off at 5 p.m. on Wednesday night at McCown Field with live stats and video on the Eagle Sports Network as Michael Wottreng and Matthew Osborne will have the call.
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