Eastern currently tied for 7th place in OVC

Dillan Schorfheide, Women's Soccer Reporter

 

While Eastern’s women’s soccer team has started its season on a good note working on its rhythm and showing improvement on both sides of the ball, other OVC teams are doing the same as they get ready for the conference play ahead.

Atop the OVC, as far as current record goes due to no conference play yet, stand the Murray State Racers and the Belmont Bruins.

The Bruins have started their season with great offensive performances in three games. Those games, all on their home field, ended in two 3-2 finishes and a 5-0 victory, against Middle Tennessee, Western Carolina and Tennessee-Wesleyan, in that order.

The Bruins won Friday’s match against Western Carolina in comeback fashion, scoring three straight goals after starting with a 1-0 deficit.

Belmont has plenty of scoring threats.

Five players on the team are tied for leading scorer with two goals, including freshmen Julie Garst and Sydney Cason, and junior Emily Whitcomb, who all scored in the come-from-behind victory Friday.

In total, the team scored 11 times in three games.

The co-leader of the OVC at the moment, Murray State, has not been as dangerous with its scoring as Belmont has been, netting six goals in its first three games, two in each contest.

Also unlike Belmont, the Racers have not had multiple people score equally. Instead, two-time OVC Player of the Year Harriet Withers has been carrying the Racer offense.

Withers has two multi-goal games three matches into the season. First against Marshall in a 2-0 victory on August 20 and then against South Alabama in a 2-1 victory Sunday.

She added another goal in the team’s other 2-1 victory of the weekend on Friday against Troy, with help from sophomore Miyah Watford whose goal gave the Racers a 1-0 in the second half.

Both Belmont and Murray State have high-powered offenses that are making them early threats to the conference. The Bruins using multiple scorers and the Racers having senior Withers carry the offensive load.

While those two teams have put themselves at the top for the moment, plenty of teams in the OVC are right behind them.

Both Austin Peay and Southeast Missouri are 3-1, second in the OVC behind Belmont and Murray State.

Austin Peay is riding a three-game winning streak, the first win came on August 20 against Middle Tennessee. This weekend, the team defeated Western Kentucky and Lipscomb 2-1 and 1-0 respectively.

SEMO alternated opponents with Eastern this weekend, playing Milwaukee Friday before Eastern did Sunday and playing Green Bay Sunday after Eastern did Friday.

Also, SEMO ended up with almost the same results as Eastern, losing 2-0 to Milwaukee as the Panthers did, as well as shutting out Green Bay. The only difference is SEMO won 2-0 against the Phoenix, and Eastern won 1-0.

Eastern is technically in the lower half of the OVC standings, due to the ties for first and third and fifth.

SIUE and Tennessee Tech, both 2-1, are just in front of Eastern and Jacksonville State, both 2-1-1.

Rounding out the OVC standings at the bottom are Eastern Kentucky (1-2-1), UT Martin (1-3) and Morehead State (0-3).

Dillan Schorfheide can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]