Coming off an ten-goal outburst in their annual Blue/White Scrimmage last Saturday evening, the Creighton Bluejays women’s soccer team welcomes the Arkansas Razorbacks to Morrison Stadium on Wednesday, August 14.
The match marks the first of Creighton’s two remaining preseason scrimmages before the regular season begins at Utah State on August 23.
Freshman Lauren Sullivan scored three goals, two of which came about a minute apart, in the 9-1 victory for the White team during Saturday’s scrimmage. After scoring 18 goals all of last season head coach Bruce Erickson was optimistic about the results on Saturday.
“A lot of quality goals… a lot of goals from distance,” said Erickson, “We spread around the scoring a little bit. We even had a couple kids, Kirstyn Corder and Alyssa Jara, battling being sick and they didn’t figure into the scorebook that day, and yet they’re two players who will probably score a lot of goals for us.”
The Razorbacks come to Omaha looking to take the next step toward making the NCAA Tournament after finishing 2012 with a 9-10-1 record (6-6-1 in SEC play). Two of those wins came at home against #18 Kentucky and on the road against #16 Missouri. Prior to those victories, Arkansas had never defeated a ranked team in women’s soccer. They also gave then top-ranked, and eventual 2012 Final Four participant, Florida State all the Seminoles could handle in a 1-0 loss early in the year.
The Razorbacks return 15 of their 25 goals from last season. They are led by their 2012 First Team SEC All-Freshman performer Ashleigh Ellenwood. The sophomore out of Michigan City, Indiana, led the Razorbacks in goals (6) and tied for the team lead in points (13) in her first collegiate season. She scored both of the team’s goals, including the game-winner, in the victory over #16 Missouri. She will no doubt be a strong test for Creighton’s back four, which had quite a few breakdowns last season at the end of halves.
This year the Bluejay back line will be led by senior center back Kelsey O’Donnell. O’Donnell, voted a team captain along with junior midfielder Madelyn Buckner for the second straight season, was a forward to begin 2012, but toward the end of the season the coaching staff felt with her size and ability to communicate she would help the team more in the back line.
“Me being the older one back there in the leadership role is nice,” said O’Donnell. “I think just with experience playing with Ylenia [Sachau], who’s a freshman, and also Emily [Roll] to my right as a freshman, we’ll gain experience every game. I’m really confident with us. Through experience we’ll hopefully progress and be better [than last year].”
Although the game with Arkansas is just a scrimmage and won’t count against either team’s regular season record, the Jays are eager to face some unfamiliar competition.
“It’s going to be a hell of a game for us,” said coach Erickson. “We wanted that to be the case. We wanted to play somebody that was going to expose us, and they will. But these guys are sick of playing each other for the past week, so we want to play somebody different.”
The scrimmage between Creighton and Arkansas will begin at 7 p.m. at Morrison Stadium.