Full Notes (PDF)
Season Stats (PDF)
Week At-a-Glance:
The Truman women’s soccer team will finally meet each of its MIAA foes this week and complete the first half of the MIAA slate, as Central Missouri and Southwest Baptist travel to Kirksville for matches on Thursday and Saturday.
The Bulldogs (8-2-2, 7-1 MIAA) continue to hold a three-point lead on Nebraska-Omaha in the MIAA standings and will take on the UCM Jennies for the first time in 2009 on Thursday. The Jens and Bulldogs were picked to finish first and second, respectively, in the preseason MIAA coaches poll. Meanwhile, Truman will be after a season sweep of SBU after handing the Bearcats a 4-0 setback in Bolivar this past Saturday.
Currently, Truman has posted 517 straight shutout minutes – encompassing six matches - dating back to Sept. 12.
Schedule:
Truman vs. Central Missouri; 2 pm, Thursday
Truman vs. Southwest Baptist; 11:30 am, Saturday
Following the Team:
Bulldog box scores and match recaps will be available immediately following each match on Truman’s Web site: gobulldogs.truman.edu.
Live stats for all home matches in 2009 are available by accessing the following link: http://gobulldogs.truman.edu/livestats/soccer/xlive.htm
Bulldog Coaching Staff:
Mike Cannon is in his 17th season as the program’s head coach, having compiled a 224-78-29 overall record at Truman. He has guided the purple and white to eight (of ten) MIAA championships and has reached the NCAA tournament seven times.
He is assisted by Martin Clayes, who is in his second season at Truman as a member of the coaching staff following a four-year stint as a player on the men’s soccer team.
Scouting the Opposition:
Central Missouri (5-4-2, 4-2-1 MIAA)
The conference’s preseason pick to win the league for the second straight year, Central Missouri has put itself in position for another late season run by moving to 4-2-1 in the MIAA entering the second half of the season.
The Jennies have struggled to score this year, however, as the squad has tallied just 13 goals in 11 games, led by Melanie Hall’s five. On the flip side, the UCM defense has been tough to crack, guided by sophomore goalkeeper Lauren Bamvakais and her 0.77 GAA.
Lewis Theobald is the head coach of the Jennies, and he is 30-12-8 in three seasons.
Southwest Baptist (5-4-1, 3-4 MIAA)
Last Time vs. SBU: Oct. 3, 2009 – Senior forward Riley Mahn registered her second career multi-goal game, and goalkeeper Jayne Grisham logged her sixth straight shutout, as the Truman women’s soccer team cruised to a 4-0 road win at Southwest Baptist University on Saturday afternoon in Bolivar.
Mahn’s goals bookended the match for Truman, finding the back of the net in the third minute before putting the exclamation point on the performance by taking a feed from freshman Kelsey Twellman in the 65th minute. Between Mahn’s tallies, senior Katie Reuck gave the Bulldogs a 2-0 halftime lead with her unassisted goal in the 29th minute before junior Beth Bystrom corralled a pass from redshirt freshman Heather Niebling and scored in the 62nd minute.
Grisham stretched her shutout streak to 517 straight minutes, dating back to Sept. 12, by turning away four SBU shots on goal. The Bulldogs took 14 total shots to nine for the host Bearcats and had a 7-4 advantage on target.
Series Info:
Truman vs. Central Missouri (Truman leads all-time series, 18-4-4).
Last year: UCM won, 1-0, on Oct. 9, 2008 in Warrensburg.
Teams tied, 2-2, on Nov. 1, 2008 in Kirksville.
Truman vs. Southwest Baptist (Truman leads all-time series, 16-3-5).
This year: Truman won, 4-0, on Oct. 3, in Bolivar.
Grisham Stars in “Player of the Week, Part Two”:
Sophomore Jayne Grisham earned her second consecutive MIAA Women’s Soccer Defensive player of the week award, announced Tuesday by the conference office. Grisham posted consecutive shutouts last week as the Bulldogs remain three points ahead of UNO in the league standings.
Grisham (Bridgeton, Mo./Ursuline Academy) posted back-to-back shutouts, her fifth and sixth solo shutouts of the season, in a pair of Truman road wins last week. She stopped six Missouri Western shots in helping Truman pick up a 1-0 double-overtime win in St. Joseph, Mo., Thursday night before turning away four Southwest Baptist attempts Saturday in a 4-0 Truman win.
With her nearly 200 minutes of shutout action this past week, Grisham lowered her season-long GAA to 0.66, having allowed just eight goals in nearly 1,100 minutes in net. She has been a part of eight team shutouts, sharing time in two.
The Bulldogs are 13th in the country in shutout percentage.
Quick Kicks:
- The current six-match shutout streak is the longest for Truman since a similar run in 2004, which ran from Oct. 17 to Nov. 7. The program once shut out seven straight opponents in 2003 (Oct. 5 - Nov. 1), with the school record being a 10-game streak in 2000.
- With eight shutouts through 12 games, the ‘Dogs are on pace for 13 this season in the regular season, which would be the third-most in school history.
- A handful of Truman players have the chance to climb into the program’s top-10 in all-time games played this season. Leading the current senior class is Kristin Haluszczak, whose 77 games played is three back of the current tenth place spot of 80. Isabel Gaeta, Kelsey Richters and Riley Mahn will also have an outside shot of cracking the top-10.
- Who scores first has served as the tell-tale for Truman this season, as the Bulldogs are 8-0-1 when tallying the first goal but are 0-2 when falling behind 1-0.
- The Bulldogs will not play at a neutral field until potentially the NCAA tournament, as all four non-conference matches in 2009 were either true home or road contests.
- The Bulldogs bring a 14-season streak of winning 10 or more games into the 2009 campaign and are just four wins away from extending that to 15.
Up Next:
Thanks to last Thursday’s location change, the Bulldogs will have two home matches next weekend - the final two of the 2009 regular season – against Northwest Missouri (Thursday, Oct. 15) and Missouri Western (Saturday, Oct. 17).