Oklahoma State University Athletics
Oklahoma State University
Oklahoma
Bedlam Highlights Split Weekend For Cowgirl Soccer
August 24, 2017 | Cowgirl Soccer
Game Notes
Oklahoma State (2-0-0)
at Oklahoma (0-1-1)
Fri., Aug. 25 • 7 p.m. • Norman, Okla.
OU Soccer Complex (3,500)
vs. Creighton (0-1-0)
Sun., Aug. 27 • Noon • Stillwater, Okla.
Cowgirl Soccer Complex (1,000)
Oklahoma StateÂ
   Oklahoma State returns to the pitch for a pair of matches this weekend as the 2-0-0 Cowgirls travel to Norman Friday for a non-conference Bedlam Series clash against rival Oklahoma at 7 p.m. before returning home to face Creighton Sunday at noon.
   OSU is coming off a 2016 season in which it compiled a 9-9-3 record and was awarded an NCAA Tournament berth for the third time in the last four seasons. The Cowgirls also finished tied for fifth in the Big 12 Conference standings with a 3-4-1 mark. OSU returns eight starters and 18 letterwinners from last season, including five of their top six scorers.
   The 2017 season marks the 22nd in the history of the OSU women's soccer program; over their first 21 seasons the Cowgirls compiled a 238-141-44 (.615) record. OSU has earned a berth in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship in nine of the last 11 years, and head coach Colin Carmichael entered his 13th season at the helm with a 164-70-34 mark.Â
About The Opponents
   Oklahoma is 0-1-1 on the season, dropping its season opener at home to Arizona, 2-0, before battling SMU to a scoreless draw in Dallas on Sunday. The Sooners return five starters from last year's NCAA Tournament team, including Preseason All-Big 12 defender Paige Welch
   OSU is 20-8-3 all time against the Sooners, but OU has won the last four meetings, three of those via shutout.
   Creighton was 9-6-2 a year ago and opened the 2017 season with a 3-0 loss at Iowa State last weekend. The Bluejays face a Thursday test at Wisconsin before traveling to Stillwater.
   The Cowgirls are 2-2-0 all time against Creighton and have won the last two meetings, a 1-0 victory in Omaha in 2011 and a 4-1 triumph the next season in Stillwater.
On The Air & The WebÂ
   Fans wishing to follow this weekend's matches can do so in a variety of ways. Friday's game will be televised live on FOX Sports Oklahoma with Chad McKee and Molly Richey on the call and will also air on Stillwater Radio Pete 94.3 FM with Bill Van Ness. Sunday's match is available via a free live video stream on the Oklahoma State Athletics Facebook page: www.facebook.com/OSUAthletics/ and also airs live on KGFY 105.5 FM. Live stats will be available for both matches via links at www.okstate.com (link can be accessed via the Schedule tab on the Cowgirl soccer page). Additionally, fans can follow the official OSU Soccer Twitter account, @CowgirlFC, for in-game updates.Â
Winning Is A Habit
   The 2017 season marks the 22nd in the OSU program's history and over those two-plus decades, the program has been built into an established winner.
   • OSU has earned a berth in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship nine of the last 11 years (beginning in 2006).
   • From 2006-11, the Cowgirls earned six-straight NCAA tourney bids and advanced to at least the second round each time, including back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2010 and 2011.Â
   • From 2008-11, OSU celebrated four consecutive Big 12 championships — two regular season (2008, '11) and two tournament ('09, '10).
   • In 2011, OSU set a school record with 22 wins. The Cowgirls finished the '11 regular season 17-0-2, joining the 1996 Nebraska team as the only Big 12 Conference teams in history to go unbeaten during the regular season. OSU was 6-0-2 in conference play to claim its second regular-season Big 12 title and in doing so became the first Big 12 team since Texas A&M in 2002 to complete the league schedule without a loss.
Back In the Saddle
   OSU returns eight players who started at least 10 games for the Cowgirls during the 2016 season. Of the 18 returning letterwinners, 16 are field players, and that group combined for 24 of the Cowgirls' 40 goals a year ago, as well as 19 of its 32 assists.
Preseason Prognostications
   In preseason voting by the league's head coaches, OSU was picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 Conference standings behind five-time defending league champion West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Baylor.Â
Home Sweet Home
   The Cowgirls are 2-0-0 on their home field in 2016. OSU is 77-16-9 (.799) at the Cowgirl Soccer Complex since 2008 and is 135-40-16 (.749) all time on its current home turf.Â
New Faces
   Eleven newcomers join OSU's 32-player roster in 2017, and the group includes nine freshmen, a redshirt freshman and a Division I transfer. Nine of the newcomers saw action on opening weekend.
Putting It In The Net
   Five of OSU's top six scorers from a year ago are once again in the fold in 2017. Midfielder Jaci Jones tallied five goals and four assists as a freshman last season, while fellow midfielder Julia Lenhardt had three goals and three assists. Junior forwards Marlo Zoller and Haley Woodard combined for 10 goals and four assists, with Woodard's six goals ranking among the top 10 in the conference.
   Also returning to the attack for her final season is Anna Beffer, who enters her senior season with career totals of seven goals and nine assists, including a career-high five assists last season to rank eighth in the Big 12.
   Nine Cowgirls who scored goals last season return, as do seven who notched assists.
Sharing The Wealth
   OSU's six goals in 2017 have been recorded by six different players, as Charmé Morgan, Camy Huddleston, Julia Lenhardt, Marlo Zoller, Coumba Sow and Clair Gantzer each found the back of the net on opening weekend. Four of those Cowgirls scorers — Morgan, Huddleston, Sow and Gantzer — notched the first goals of their careers.
   Jaci Jones and Anna Beffer each recorded multiple assists on opening weekend, with Jones posting three and Beffer adding a pair. Zoller also had an assist to go along with her goal.
Climbing The Charts
   Goalie Michela Ongaro is among OSU's all-time statistical leaders in the net. The Wisconsin native and former walk-on is fourth on the Cowgirls' career charts with 13 shutouts and 206 saves, and her 1.7 goals against average is sixth all time.Â
League Leaders
   Michela Ongaro led the Big 12 with 88 saves in 2016. Ongaro's career-high total ranked as the eighth most in a single season in program history.
   As a team, OSU recorded 93 saves, a total that also topped the conference.
  Â
Big Boots To Fill
   The Cowgirls lost eight letterwinners from their 2016 squad, including all-conference performers Courtney Dike and Natalie Calhoun.
   In Dike and Calhoun, OSU must replace two of only four players in program history to earn All-Big 12 honors four times.
   Dike goes down as one of the most prolific scorers to ever play for the Cowgirls. She ranks third on OSU's career points list with 83, fourth on the career goals list with 31 and fifth with 21 assists. She capped her career by being named the 2016 Big 12 Co-Offensive Player of the Year as a senior.
   In Calhoun, the Cowgirls lost one of the league's top defenders and a player who anchored a unit that recorded 26 shutouts over the last four years. The center back played in all 83 of OSU's games during her career and was a starter in 82 of those, and she ranked either first or second in minutes played among field players each of her four seasons.
Big 12's Best
   Oklahoma State had a Big 12 Conference weekly award winner five times in 2016, with Courtney Dike being honored twice and Julia Lenhardt, Jaci Jones and Michela Ongaro also being recognized for their standout play.  Â
   Dike was named the first Big 12 Conference Offensive Player of the Week for 2016. In the season opener at Georgia, Dike's goal in the 62nd minute gave OSU its first lead of the contest, and on Sunday against Mercer, she scored just 72 seconds into the match to help the Cowgirls record their first win of the season. Dike also picked up the honor on Oct. 11 following a weekend that saw her record an assist in a 1-0 win at Texas Tech and a goal in a 1-1 draw at Kansas.
   Dike was recognized with a Big 12 weekly award six times in her career.Â
   Lenhardt was named the Big 12 Freshman of the Week following week two after she recorded OSU's first two goals to lead the Cowgirls to a 4-1 win over Oral Roberts. In notching the first two scores of her collegiate career, the midfielder also became the first OSU freshman to score multiple goals in a game since Dike in 2013.Â
   Jones was the league's Big 12 Freshman of the Week on Sept. 12 after she was OSU's leading scorer in helping the Cowgirls to wins over Abilene Christian and UTSA. The midfielder recorded two goals and two assists on the weekend, notching assists in both matches and collecting the first multi-goal game of her career with a pair of goals vs. UTSA.
   Ongaro was named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week on Oct. 11 following a weekend that saw her record 12 saves. She picked up a shutout vs. Texas Tech Friday night before racking up eight saves in a tie at Kansas on Sunday.
New Home For Cowgirl Soccer
   In the spring of 2017, construction began on a new stadium for the Cowgirl Soccer program.
   With completion planned for the fall of 2018, the new home of OSU soccer is a $20 million project and is located on the current site of the Cowgirl Soccer Complex.
   The new facility will be a showcase for college soccer with club seats, plaza and upper bowl gathering areas and a north end zone terrace area and seating designed specifically for OSU students. Team facilities include locker rooms, meeting areas, kitchen facilities, sports medicine areas and equipment rooms. The stadium will be able to accommodate more than 3,500 fans in permanent seats.
   The west side of the stadium will include 552 bleacher seats, 659 chairback seats and 432 stadium seats in the lower bowl. The upper bowl will feature another 378 chairback seats and 164 stadium seats.
   Atop the west side of the stadium will be two club levels with a capacity of 80 and two suites with a capacity of 20 guests each. A new press box will sit atop the stadium.
   The west side will be anchored by a club area at field level that can host more than 100 and serve as a player lounge and nutrition area on non-game days.
   The north end zone includes bleacher seating for more than 400 and will include a patio, a building and a concourse area that can host more than 125 for gatherings.
   Another additional 900 seats will remain on the east side of the stadium, where they have been located since the program was launched.
Remembering Neal
   The major benefactor of the new and under construction Cowgirl Soccer stadium is Oklahoma State alumnus Neal Patterson, who passed away in July at the age of 67. Throughout the 2017 season, the Cowgirls' uniforms will include a patch of Patterson's initials — NP — sewn onto the sleeve to honor his memory.
   An Oklahoma native who grew up on his family's farm near Manchester, Patterson earned a bachelor's degree in finance and an MBA from OSU in the early 1970s. In 1979, he co-founded the Cerner Corporation and served as the company's CEO at the time of his death. Cerner is the world's largest publicly traded health information technology company with $4.8 billion in revenues in 2016 and approximately 24,000 associates worldwide. FORTUNE recently named Cerner one of the world's most admired companies.
   Patterson was also one of five principal owners of the Sporting Kansas City Major League Soccer franchise. The group adopted the Sporting Kansas City brand in 2010 and was instrumental in opening Children's Mercy Park, a soccer-specific stadium that helped turn around the Kansas City franchise. The venue has seen 97 consecutive MLS sellouts.
