Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowgirls Begin Defense Of Big 12 Title
August 20, 2009 | Cowgirl Soccer
Aug. 20, 2009
#11 Oklahoma State
at #17 Colorado
Saturday, Aug. 22 • 3:30 p.m.
Prentup Field (2,000) • Boulder, Colo.
Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State opens defense of its Big 12 Conference championship by traveling to Boulder Saturday to face Colorado in the 2009 season opener for both teams. The Cowgirls are coming off the best season in school history, one in which they finished 18-1-4 overall and 7-1-2 in conference play and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship for the third consecutive year.
OSU returns seven starters and 14 letterwinners from last year's squad, including All-Big 12 performers Kasey Langdon and Siera Strawser and Freshman All-American Melinda Mercado.
The Cowgirls are coming off an exhibition win over Tulsa last Saturday as Bridget Miller and Siera Strawser netted goals to lead OSU to a 2-0 victory.
OSU is 3-9-2 all-time against Colorado and tied the Buffaloes, 1-1, last season in Boulder, where the Cowgirls have never beaten CU.
Colorado
Colorado is coming off a 14-5-4 season, which included a 6-2-2 mark in Big 12 play and ended with a loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Buffs return six starters from a year ago.
The Buffs recorded a pair of preseason exhibition wins, with a 1-0 triumph at Wyoming and a 2-1 victory at home against Northern Colorado.
Players To Watch: F Nikki Marshall, D Caroline Danneberg
In The Polls
OSU is ranked as high as No. 11 in the preseason NSCAA/adidas poll. The Cowgirls are ranked 13th by SoccerTimes.com, 18th by TopDrawerSoccer.com and 24th by Soccer America.
Colorado's highest ranking is No. 17 by Soccer America. The Buffs are ranked 24th by SoccerTimes.com and are receiving votes in the preseason NSCAA/adidas poll.
On The Air & The Web
Saturday's game will be carried live by Stillwater Radio and will air on KSPI 780 AM. Bill Van Ness will call the action. Links to the radio broadcast, as well as GameTracker live stats, can also be accessed via the internet at the official OSU Athletics website: www.okstate.com. Those links can be found under the Schedule/Results link on the soccer home page.
A Championship Season
The 2008 season was one for the OSU soccer record books.
The Cowgirls set a school record with 18 wins, finishing 18-1-4, and won the first regular season Big 12 Conference championship in school history by finishing league play with a 7-1-2 mark.
OSU, which climbed to as high as No. 7 in the national polls in '08, ranked sixth nationally with an .870 winning percentage.
The Cowgirls placed three players on the All-Big 12 team -- first teamers Kasey Langdon and Yolanda Odenyo and second teamer Siera Strawser -- and Odenyo was named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year.
Head coach Colin Carmichael was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year and also earned Central Region Coach of the Year honors.
Becoming A Trend
For the third-straight season, Oklahoma State is nationally ranked in the preseason polls, earning a spot as high as No. 11 in the NSCAA/adidas poll. That ranking marks their highest ever in the preseason polls.
Along with being nationally ranked, OSU was picked by the Big 12 Conference's head coaches to finish fourth in the league race.That could be a good omen as last season the Cowgirls were also picked fourth in the preseason poll and then went on to claim their first-ever regular season conference championship.
In 2007, the Cowgirls began and finished the season in the national rankings, the first time that has happened in OSU soccer history. The Cowgirls ended the season ranked as high as 17th.
The '07 season came on the heels of a 2006 campaign that saw OSU achieve its highest national ranking ever -- No. 7 -- and earn a spot in the final national polls for the first time in the program's history.
Tough Tests
Nearly a third of OSU's games this season will be against opponents who are ranked in the national preseason polls.
Of the Cowgirls 19 regular season games in 2009, six are against ranked teams as OSU will battle Colorado, BYU, USC, Missouri, Texas A&M and Texas. Two of those -- Texas A&M and USC -- are ranked in the Top 10.
OSU faces three of its ranked foes in Stillwater and three on the road.
Three's Company
OSU had three players named to the 2009 preseason All-Big 12 Conference team, which was selected by the league's head coaches.
Seniors Kasey Langdon and Siera Strawser and sophomore Melinda Mercado were named to the 16-player team.
With three selections, OSU tied Missouri for the second-most preseason All-Big 12 players in the league. Texas A&M had four.
Records Are Made To Be Broken
A pair of Cowgirls are climbing the OSU career charts and are on the verge of vaulting to the top of several of those lists.
• Siera Strawser has 26 career goals and needs 10 to set OSU's all-time mark, which is held by Yolanda Odenyo and Jolene Schweitzer.
• Strawser should easily - and quickly - break the Cowgirl record for career shots. She enters the season with 211, just 10 shy of Odenyo's record.
• With 14 career assists, Strawser needs just five more to move into the top five on OSU's all-time list.
• Kasey Langdon needs just three assists to move into second all time at OSU. Langdon has racked up 23 assists in her first three seasons in Stillwater.
• Langdon has 19 career goals, leaving her only five shy of moving into the top five on the Cowgirls' career list.
• Strawser and Langdon rank fifth and sixth on OSU's all-time scoring list with 66 and 61 points. Odenyo's 90 points top the list.
1-2 Punch
Seniors Kasey Langdon and Siera Strawser give OSU arguably the top scoring duo in the Big 12.
Last season, Langdon and Strawser combined for 24 goals and 21 assists, accounting for 34 percent of OSU's scoring.
Both players rank among the top seven on OSU's career charts in goals, assists and points.
