Aug. 26, 2004

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Samford University soccer team will begin play in its 2004 regular season on Friday as the Bulldogs face off against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles at 4 p.m., in a non-conference matchup held at the USM Track and Soccer Complex. "This weekend is the real deal," said Samford head coach Todd Yelton. "We're not in the exhibition season anymore and we're going up against two very good opponents in Southern Miss and Tulane. I believe that we've improved during this week of practice and we've done a good job of working on the things that we needed to improve upon." Samford enters the 2004 season with hopes of building upon its successful campaign a year ago. Last season, the Bulldogs posted a remarkable 12-4-5 overall record and earned the 2003 Ohio Valley Conference regular-season title. Samford finished its inaugural OVC campaign with a near-perfect 7-1 record. Earlier this summer, the Bulldogs were chosen to repeat as the OVC regular-season champions and on Aug. 18, Samford was ranked No. 12 in the Southeast Regional standings released by Soccer Buzz Magazine. The regional ranking, the Bulldogs' first in its seven-year history of women's soccer, had Samford sandwiched between Southeastern Conference powers Georgia and South Carolina. Georgia entered the listing as the 11th-ranked team in the region, while South Carolina followed the Bulldogs at No. 13. "Every year is a new year and our team is so young right now that we don't really know what to expect," Yelton said. "A lot of our players are freshman and this will be their first road trip, so right now we're just going to see how they handle it and see what happens." Samford heads into Friday's contest against Southern Miss looking to rebound from a 4-1 exhibition loss versus the Vanderbilt Commodores on Aug. 21. In the defeat, the Bulldogs were without a number of key players and fell behind early in the match due to a pair of Vanderbilt first-half goals. In the second half, Samford upped its defensive intensity and held the Commodores scoreless for nearly 35 minutes before Vanderbilt tacked on a couple of late goals. Samford's score came in the second half of the contest when sophomore Kim Matthews gathered a pass from senior Heidi Kearns and one-timed a perfectly-placed shot into the bottom right-hand corner of the net. Friday's contest marks the first competitive soccer for Southern Miss this season and will also be the coaching debut for first-year head coach Gail Macklin. The Golden Eagles were scheduled to play an exhibition match at William Carey on Aug. 21, but inclement weather forced the contest to be canceled. The Lady Eagles finished with a 9-7-3 overall record in 2003 and return nine starters and 15 letterwinners from last year's squad. Sophomore forward Carly Barkley led Southern Miss with nine goals in 2003, including four game winners and a total of 20 points. Sarah Brennan, another Golden Eagle sophomore forward, tallied eight goals last season, while senior Lauren Prewitt notched five goals and fired a team-high 58 shots. Southern Miss owns a 3-0 series lead over Samford, including a slight 1-0 victory over the Bulldogs last season. "Southern Miss is definitely a quality opponent and it was a tight match last year," said Yelton. "Hopefully, this season we'll be able to play the entire contest 11-versus-11, because last year we had a player sent off due to a hand ball. I expect the match to be very close and I expect Southern Miss to have a good team." The Samford University soccer team will look to pick up its first victory against the Southern Miss Golden Eagles on Friday as the teams square off at the USM Track and Soccer Complex at 4 p.m., in Hattiesburg, Miss.