Women's Soccer Faces First Road Trip of the Season

WHAT: Match 2
WHO: Memphis at Samford
WHEN: 7 p.m. CT, August 28, 2015
WATCH: SoCon Digital Network
STATS: StatBroadcast
TWITTER: @MemphisWSoccer

WHAT: Match 3
WHO: Memphis at UAB
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. CT, August 30, 2015
WATCH: Blazer Vision
STATS: G ameTracker
TWITTER: @MemphisWSoccer

A week after beating Alabama, 1-0, at home to open the season, the Memphis women's soccer team will travel to Birmingham, Ala. for matches against Samford and UAB. The Tigers play Samford Friday night at 7:00 p.m. at SU Soccer Stadium before a match at UAB Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. on the Blazers' West Campus Field.

Memphis just needed one goal, scored by freshman Elizabeth Woerner, and a strong defensive performance to pick up a sixth consecutive win over Alabama last week. The Tigers will be hoping for more of the same defensively but will hope to improve overall with each game early in the year.

"Winning is not easy so we'll take that win but we're always trying to get better and improve in certain areas and we're looking at the big picture," Memphis head coach Brooks Monaghan said. "You move on and learn from it and hopefully some of the things I didn't think went well will go better this weekend."

Samford split a pair of home games to open the season, beating Boise State 2-0 in their home opener before falling narrowly to South Alabama, 3-2. The Bulldogs scored first against South Alabama and grabbed a 2-1 lead early in the second half but a pair of unanswered goals in the final 20 minutes saw the game slip away from them.

Expectations are high for Samford as they were picked to repeat as the Southern Conference regular season champions. The Bulldogs return eight starters from last year's team and juniors Anna Allen and Jermaine Seoposenwe were both named to the Preseason All-SoCon Team.

Junior forward Malcanisha Kelley has scored three of the Bulldogs' four goals so far this season while Seoposenwe has assisted on three goals in the first two games.

The overall series is tied 3-3 with Memphis winning the last three matchups.

"Samford is a team that we've played quite a bit in the past. They are a very well-coached team and they're very athletic. We need to get better this week to give ourselves a chance to compete in that game," said Monaghan.

UAB got off to a positive start with a 4-3 double overtime win at Austin Peay to open the season. Senior forward Kasey Johnson scored two goals, including the game-winner in the 105^th minute.

The Blazers started six true freshmen in the match and got goals from a pair of those newcomers, Marin Carter and Jessica Do. Starting goalkeeper Kelsey Daugherty is also a first-year player.

UAB is a former conference rival of the Tigers but the two teams haven't played since 2012. Memphis has a slight 10-9-1 edge all time but the Tigers have won eight of the last 10 meetings.

"We have two tough games this weekend. UAB will be a team that plays more of our style of possession-oriented soccer. It should be a fun game but it will be tough," Monaghan said.

Memphis will have one more road match, a neutral site meeting with Dartmouth in Nashville, September 6 at 7 p.m. The Tigers return to Mike Rose Soccer Complex to host UT Martin Sept. 11 at 7:30 p.m.

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Players Mentioned

Elizabeth Woerner

University of Memphis Athletics