NORMAL, Ill. - Heading into the Missouri Valley Conference season with a 3-4-2 record, the Illinois State women's soccer team travels to Evansville, Ind., looking for a fresh start in the race for the league title. The Redbirds and the Purple Aces will kick off the conference season with a 12 p.m. Saturday matchup at Black Beauty Field.
Illinois State head coach Pete Kowall is eager to start the Valley slate, while knowing the competition will be stiff.
"We're excited for the league season to start," said Kowall. "This is something we certainly looking forward to every year and especially this season. It's a competitive conference but it's a different league this season, to some degree, because there were a lot of great people to graduate off of each team last year. For that reason it's a wide open race in terms of who can win the championship. There are several teams, if not all teams, who can win the league this year. Like in the past, it's going to be a competitive year for the Valley."
Evansville owns an even 4-4 record and sits in fifth place in current Valley rankings, one spot above ISU. The Purple Aces finished the 2005 season with a 10-8-1 record, good enough for sixth place in the Missouri Valley. They were ousted from the 2005 State Farm MVC tournament in a semifinal loss (3-2) to Creighton, the eventual tournament champion.
Last season, the `Birds downed Evansville in Normal, 5-1, the most goals Illinois State scored in a game all year. Current Redbirds Bethany Russ, Yvonne Northover and Carrie Schurr all scored in the victory.
The all-time series with Evansville is in favor of the `Birds, as ISU leads 6-4-2 and have won five of the last six meetings.
Kowall looks for a solid matchup on Saturday, though believing his team will come out on top.
"I think Evansville will be better simply because they are older, they were quite young last year," said Kowall. "A lot of things that happened to them last year were because they were just young to game situations. Playing on the road, of course, is a little tougher but I'm still very confident in my team. I think they are used to being on the road at this point and we have been playing well. We're just not finishing games. I think we can change that on Saturday. I think we will play well and start to put the pieces together and do what we need to do to come out victorious on Saturday."
