HAMMOND – Despite a gut-wrenching overtime loss to Nicholls on Friday, the Northwestern State soccer team is still alive in the Southland Conference Tournament race.
The Lady Demons (5-9-3, 2-5-2 SLC) will need to win their last two regular season matches, starting Sunday at Southeastern (10-4-2, 5-3-1 SLC).
NSU sits in 10th place with eight points in the standings (two wins and two ties).
The Lady Demons need to reach seventh place to be one of the six SLC Tournament-eligible teams (third-place Abilene Christian is still transitioning to the SLC and not postseason eligible).
NSU needs to jump three teams – Central Arkansas (6-10-1, 3-5-1 SLC for 10 points), McNeese State (6-9, 3-6 SLC for nine points) and Nicholls (5-9-1, 3-6 SLC for nine points).
With losses to Nicholls and McNeese already this season, the Lady Demons can't tie those teams in points. NSU closes its regular season at home with Central Arkansas on Friday.
"You have to credit Nicholls because we were dangerous only a limited amount of times (Friday)," said NSU coach George Van Linder following a 2-1 loss in overtime. With the quick first goal (by Esdeina Gonzalez) and the quality of it, we thought it would be a great day.
"With the (defensive) breakdowns that led to their (first) goal, it was a sign of a what a difficult day it would be. But I've said this all year – I like our team and I know we will respond Sunday."
NSU is attempting to make its first SLC Tournament appearance since 2008, but the program's first loss to Nicholls in its history (23-0-1 before Friday) made navigating the tournament path more difficult.
Southeastern is attempting to break out of a late-season lull itself. After winning the first three conference games, the Lady Lions are 2-3-1 in their last six.
But Southeastern is coming off a 1-0 win against Central Arkansas on Friday.
NSU leads the conference with more than 17 shots attempted per game, with Southeastern coming in second at 16.69 shots per game.
Southeastern has converted more of those chances this season, scoring 2.38 goals per game (second in the SLC) compared to 1.82 per game for NSU (third).
The Lady Lions' Gisenia Utreras is the league's third-leading scorer with 10 goals in 16 matches this season.
NSU boasts two of the SLC's scoring leaders in senior Cassandra Briscoe and sophomore Esdeina Gonzalez (five goals each, tied for eighth).
After NSU freshmen scored 18 of the team's first 23 goals this season, non-freshmen have scored all eight goals in the last six matches. Briscoe has three goals in that stretch, Gonzalez two and junior Camila Ardila one.
Southeastern features three of the top five passers in the league in Utreras (seven assists, second in SLC), Ana Zadro (six assists, tied for third) and Sofia Olsson (five assists, tied for fifth).
Briscoe has an NSU-high five assists – tied with Olsson for fifth in the league.
Among regular goalkeepers that have logged at least 700 minutes, Southeastern's Hope Sabadash (0.91 goals against average) leads the league with NSU sophomore Alex Latham (1.30 goals against average) ranking fourth.
