Women's Soccer - SMU vs. Houston

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

The Mustangs take on the Cougars Sunday afternoon with a 2pm start at Westcott.

Houston is currently 4-7-0 and 1-2-0 in C-USA after falling in overtime at Tulsa Friday night.

SMU will really need to make sure they regain their focus after the heartbreaking loss Friday night. The Sunday conference matches are always tough and there is no room for any hangover from the Rice match.

On the bright side, SMU appeared to escape Friday night without any new health issues - although Courtney Webb was obviously battling some sort of leg tightness in the second half. Certainly she will be ready to go Sunday.

It would probably be safe to assume Rikki Clarke will miss Sunday, although Ryanne Lewis was able to start and play 71 minutes Friday so she is apparently healthy enough to make her regular contribution to the team.

It will be interesting to see how SMU approaches this one tactically, but Houston is still a team SMU should be able to handle at home even if the Mustangs are a bit shorthanded. As mentioned earlier, the real danger is a combination of not being over Friday night and/or looking ahead to the Memphis game next Friday.

Go Ponies!

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

SMU wins 1-0 to move to 7-5-0 and 3-1-0 in C-USA.

Kenzie Scovill buried her own rebound for the goal midway through the first half.

Courtney Webb had her fourth clean sheet of the season.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

SMU had a 17-8 advantage in shots and a 9-2 advantage in shots on goal.

SMU also had a 6-3 advantage in corners.

While it wasn't exactly the most exciting soccer match ever played, SMU did have reasonable control of the run of play for the better part of the 90 minutes. It was still pretty tenuous only having the one goal lead of course.

Kenzie Scovill is putting a pretty nice season together. With four goals and an assist she takes over the team scoring lead from Mallory Baum (3G, 2A).

After a bit of a down season last year with two goals and three assists it is great to see Scovill putting up numbers similar to her freshman season in 2009 when she was the leading scorer on the team with six goals and one assist.

All in all it was nice to get the win today - I'm sure none of us are really over Friday night yet. There is certainly quite a bit of adversity in this thing right now but the team appears to be doing a nice job fighting through it. The road trip to Memphis and UAB next weekend will certainly be a huge test for the Mustangs.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

The big news in C-USA today is Colorado College playing to a 1-1 draw at UCF. It's nice to bump UCF down in the standings, but it also might give some credibility to Colorado College - who previously had played the three lowest teams in the conference.

Second place in C-USA is now up for grabs - although Rice certainly has the inside track since they already have a loss to Memphis.

C-USA standings through today:

1. Memphis (4-0-0, 12 points)
2. Colorado College (3-0-1, 10)
3. UTEP (3-1-0, 9)
4. Rice (3-1-0, 9)
5. SMU (3-1-0, 9)
6. UCF (2-1-1, 7)
7. Tulsa (1-2-1, 4)
8. Houston (1-3-0, 3)
9. UAB (0-2-1, 1)
10. Southern Miss (0-3-1, 1)
11. Marshall (0-3-1, 1)
12. East Carolina (0-3-0, 0)

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

SMU is still in the "others receiving votes" in the NSCAA Central regional rankings this week.

The interesting thing is the TopDrawerSoccer.com weekly rankings based on predicting the 64-team NCAA tournament features three C-USA teams for the first time.

They have Memphis at No. 19, UCF at No. 25, and Rice at No. 48.

This is huge because for SMU to have any chance of making the tournament it will likely be necessary for the committee to first think C-USA deserves three spots.

Now it is up to the Mustangs to take care of business during the rest of the regular season and in the conference tournament to make sure SMU is in position to be one of those three teams!