Islanders Ready For Three-Match Home Stand

Soccer | September 27, 2017

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - After suffering a pair of 2-0 losses at the hands of Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will try to get back on track with a slate of three straight home matches, starting with visiting Southeastern Louisiana.

The Blue and Green is undefeated playing at Dugan in 2017 and 1-0 when those contests have been on a Friday. SLU comes into the weekend ranked in the bottom quarter of the Southland Conference but is riding a 2-0 victory over UIW from the previous Sunday where Lion keeper Michaela Hawthorn registered her third clean sheet of the year. Despite being outscored 4-0 over the weekend, the Blue and Green is still one of the strongest defensive teams in the conference with just 11 goals against on the year and are driving toward their best season in program history.

Before their loss to SHSU, the Islanders were on their longest unbeaten streak in history (4) and recorded the program's longest streak of shutout minutes (344) before the Bearkat's first half tally. With just one more win added to his team's 4-4-1 overall, HC Craig Shaw will have tied the school's record for wins in a season, and will officially have the winningest team in the university's history in his first year on the Island.

PROMOTIONS
>> Confucius Day - Come get your free fortune cookie

SERIES HISTORY

• The Islanders are 1-4-0 against SLU all time, but are 1-1-0 when playing the Lions inside Dugan Stadium
• The Blue and Green's last victory against Southeastern La. came in 2015. Brooke Erdmann is the only player on the current Corpus Christi roster to have seen time in that game, as the Islanders took the final count 2-1
• Jordan Wainwright started for the Islanders between the pipes in last year's regular season match with the Lions, stopping seven of the eight shots that reached target
• SLU beat Corpus Christi 1-0 in 2016, on an overtime goal in the 92nd minute of scoreless action
• Current Islanders Erdmann, Wainwright, Madeleine Lozano and Shayla Spearman all earned starts against the Lions in 2016, with Spearman recording career-highs in shots (3) and shots on goal (3)
• Six of the players that started for the Lions in last year's regular season meeting are on the current roster, five of which have earned a start in 2017
• SLU is 106-61-21 against current Southland Conference members all-time, while the Islanders sit at 13-32-3
• The Blue and Green has met the Lions in the postseason just once, losing to the side in the quarterfinals of the 2015 Southland Conference Championship, 3-1

THE ISLANDERS

• The Islanders suffered their first back-to-back losses of the season after falling 2-0 to both SHSU and Stephen F. Austin last weekend
• Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's loss to the Bearkats ended the program's longest running unbeaten streak (4)
• The Islanders' longest running shutout streak came to an end against the Bearkats as well. After 344 minutes without a goal against, the Blue and Green's new record is nearly 50 minutes longer than its previous best
• Kaitlyn Joy registered a career-high five shots against the SHSU on Friday, while Emily Keoughan's four shots ties the season-high she recorded at PVAMU. Joy leads the Islanders with 16 shots and is tied for a team-high four points
• Corpus Christi outshot SFA three SOGs to one in the first half of Sunday's contest, and kept the match to a scoreless draw until the 71st minute
• With 94 shots on the year, the Islanders have had more attempts on net in their previous three matches (50) than their first six combined (42)
• The Islanders are off to their best start in program history (4-4-1) and sit just a single win away from posting their best season of all-time 
• Lawrence's game winner against UIW is the second of her career and puts her in a tie with Brooke Erdmann for the second-most in program history. 
• With two game-winners Katie Lawrence is just a single GWG short of tying a conference-high •
• The Blue and Green's 1.176 goals against average ranks third in the Southland this season. The 11 tallies against the Islanders trails just McNeese (3) for the least allowed in the conference  
• Abbie Flax' 1.237 GAA for the year ranks fourth among qualifying Southland goalkeepers, and third among regular starters 
• Of the 18 wins Corpus Christi has accrued from 2013-16, 13 of those victories have come against Southland opponents
• SLU enters the coming week off a 2-0 win against UIW, the same score that the Islanders beat the Cardinals by earlier this year on the road
• 19 of the Blue and Green's 94 shots have come off of free kicks and corners this season (20%), along with three of their nine goals this year (33%)
• Corpus Christi has drawn a whopping 98 fouls this season (9.80/match). They've been fouled 10-plus times in all but three matches this season

SCOUTING THE LIONS

• The Lions have the third-lowest goal total in the Southland with nine tallies. The team's .900 tallies per match trail only UIW (.700) for the worst in the conference
• With 70 saves on the year, keeper Michaela Hawthorn leads the Southland field by 10. Only eight other tenders in Division I women's soccer have more stops than Hawthorn, as the freshman sits just 12 back from the national leader
• Maggie Ramsey leads SLU with three goals this season, with the Lions' nine goals coming from five different players overall. The redshirt-junior has scored three-plus goals in all four years since coming to Hammond, holding a career point total of 44
• 33 of Southeastern Louisiana's 63 shots on goal (52%) have come from Ramsey (16), Christina Cutura (9) or Amber Marinero (8)
• SLU leads the conference with just 6.80 fouls committed per match, they've given up ten-plus free kicks just twice all year
• The Lions are coming off their first Southland win of the year after dropping UIW 2-0 at home. The Islanders recorded the same result against the Cardinals earlier this year in San Antonio
• Before the UIW match, SLU had scored just a single goal over the four previous contests, with its lone tally coming in a 1-1 draw with visiting Louisiana-Monroe
• Southeastern Louisiana has recorded a league-low 21 shots in Southland play, but has allowed opponents 32 attempts on frame over its three conference matches