Cowgirl Soccer Heads West To Continue Play In NCAA Soccer Championship

November 19, 2019 | Cowgirl Soccer

Game Notes

#12 Oklahoma State (16-2-3)
vs. #20 Santa Clara (14-5-2)

Fri., Nov. 22 • 1 p.m. (CST) • Los Angeles, Calif.
Soni McAlister Field (1,000)

Video/TV: Pac-12 Network+
Radio: n/a
Live Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
Twitter In-Game Updates: @CowgirlFC

About Oklahoma State
   • Oklahoma State faces Santa Clara in the second round of the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship Friday in Los Angeles. The Cowgirls, a No. 3 national seed in the NCAA tourney, are 16-2-3 on the season and opened the tournament with a first-round win over South Dakota State last week. OSU was crowned the 2019 Big 12 regular season champion after going 7-1-1 in conference play.
   • The Cowgirls are coming off a 10-7-1 season in 2018 that included a 2-6-1 mark in Big 12 Conference play as they finished ninth in the league. OSU failed to make the postseason for the first time since 2005.
   • OSU opened last season 10-1-0 and climbed to No. 12 in the national rankings. After a tie at home against No. 6 Texas, the Cowgirls — who were hit hard by key injuries — dropped their final six games.
   • The Cowgirls return 15 letterwinners from 2018, including nine players who started at least 10 games.
   • The 2019 season is the 24th in program history; over the first 23 years, OSU posted a 273-161-51 (.605) record. Head coach Colin Carmichael entered his 15th season at the helm in 2019 with a 190-81-38 mark.

Cowgirls At The NCAA Soccer Championship
   OSU is making its 12th NCAA Women's Soccer Championship appearance in program history. The Cowgirls have earned a tourney bid five times in the last seven years and 11 times in the last 14 years. Their first NCAA berth came in 2003; they made six-straight trips from 2006-11 and back-to-back appearances in 2013-14 and 2016-17.
   OSU is 10-8-5 all time at the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship, and the Cowgirls have advanced to at least the second round eight times, including back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2010 and 2011.
If OSU wins Friday's match against Santa Clara, the Cowgirls will advance to the Sweet 16 to face the Texas A&M-USC winner on Sunday.

Winning Is A Habit
            Now in its 24th season, Oklahoma State soccer has built itself into an established winner.
   • OSU has earned a berth in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship 11 of the last 14 years (beginning in 2006) and five of the last seven.
   • 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.
   • From 2008-11, OSU celebrated four consecutive Big 12 championships — two regular season (2008, '11) and two tournament ('09, '10). The Cowgirls also won regular season titles in 2017 and 2019.

7th Heaven
            Oklahoma State captured the seventh Big 12 Conference championship in program history with its 2019 regular season title. It marks the fourth regular season crown for the Cowgirls and second in the last three years; OSU also won regular season championships in 2008, 2011 and 2017.
   OSU opened '19 Big 12 play with a loss at Texas Tech before a tie at TCU. Following that opening weekend, the Cowgirls won seven consecutive games to claim the title.

This Week's Opponent
   • Santa Clara is 14-5-2 and unbeaten in its last 12 matches dating back to a Sept. 22 loss to Stanford. The Broncos rank seventh nationally with 56 goals; Kelsey Turnbow and Izzy D'Aquila lead SCU with 14 goals apiece.
   • OSU and Santa Clara have met once before, that coming in the second round of the 2009 NCAA Women's Soccer Championship at Santa Clara. The teams battled to a 1-1 draw, but the Broncos advanced by winning the penalty kick shootout.

Milestone
   Colin Carmichael recorded his 200th career win with OSU's 2-0 victory at Texas on Oct. 11. Carmichael has spent all 15 of his seasons as a head coach in Stillwater.
   Now with 205 career wins, Carmichael ranks third among active Big 12 coaches in wins at their current school, trailing only Nikki Izzo-Brown, who has 351 wins in 24 seasons at West Virginia, and Mark Francis, who has amassed 235 victories in 21 seasons at Kansas.

Award Tour
   OSU collected its most all-conference selections in eight years — and its second most all time — in 2019, while Colin Carmichael was named the league's top coach for a record sixth time.
   Five Cowgirls garnered 2019 All-Big 12 honors, the most for OSU since a program-record seven in 2011. Only three times in school history have five or more Cowgirls earned all-league recognition (2010, '11, '19).
   Earning All-Big 12 First Team honors for OSU were defender Kim Rodriguez, a unanimous selection, and midfielder Grace Yochum. Named to the All-Big 12 Second Team were defender Charmé Morgan, midfielder Jaci Jones and forward Olyvia Dowell, who also earned a spot on the All-Freshman Team.

Veteran Presence
   Five seniors dot the OSU roster, and that group — Elise Hawn, Claire Gantzer, Jaci Jones, Julia Lenhardt and Kirsten Siragusa — has combined for 379 games of experience, which includes 303 starts.

Quick Kicks
   • OSU ranks second in the Big 12 with 10 shutouts and has allowed just 15 goals, tied for the fewest in the conference. The Cowgirls' 0.68 goals against average is also tied for the league lead.
   • Cowgirl goalie Dani Greenlee ranks second in the Big 12 in save percentage (.806), third in goals-against average (0.70) and fourth in shutouts (6).
   • OSU leads the Big 12 with 49 goals and 137 points and is third with 39 assists and 121 corner kicks.
   • Jaci Jones' 12 assists tops the league and ranks eighth nationally. Her 26 points is fifth in the Big 12.
   • Cowgirl sophomore Grace Yochum ranks fifth in the Big 12 with 11 goals.
   • OSU has three players in the top 10 in the Big 12 in assists — Jaci Jones (first with 12 assists), Olyvia Dowell (fifth with eight assists) and Kim Rodriguez (eighth with seven assists).

Home Sweet Home
   OSU went 10-0-1 on its home field in 2019, the seventh time in program history the Cowgirls have gone undefeated at home in a season. Seven of those wins came via shutout, and OSU did not allow a goal in its first five home matches. A year ago, the Cowgirls finished with a 5-4-1 mark in their first season at Neal Patterson Stadium.
   OSU was 84-16-10 (.809) at the Cowgirl Soccer Complex from 2008-17 and was 142-40-17 (.756) all time on its former home turf.

Sharing The Wealth
   OSU ranks 17th nationally in scoring offense at 2.33 goals per game. The Cowgirls have 49 goals on the season, which ranks 13th in the NCAA, and 10 different Cowgirls have scored goals in 2019, with eight of those tallying three or more.

Road Rarity
   Oklahoma State's 2-1 win in double overtime at No. 6 Penn State marked just the fifth time in program history the Cowgirls have beaten a top-10 ranked team on the road.
2018    2-1 (2 OT) at No. 6 Penn State
2017    2-1 (OT) at No. 8 Texas
2007   2-1 (OT) at No. 5 Missouri; 2-1 (OT) at No. 9 Notre Dame
2006   1-0 at No. 10 Texas

Preseason Pub
   • Oklahoma State was picked to finish seventh in the 2019 Big 12 Conference standings in a preseason vote of the league's head coaches.
   • Junior defender Kim Rodriguez was named to the 2019 Preseason All-Big 12 Team and listed at No. 90 on the TopDrawerSoccer.com Women's National Top 100 players for college soccer in 2019.

In The Rankings
This week marked OSU's 10th consecutive week in the national rankings as the Cowgirls came in as high as No. 12 in the TopDrawerSoccer.com poll. OSU, which has been ranked as high as No. 9 nationally in 2019, also occupies the No. 2 spot in the United Soccer Coaches Midwest Region rankings.
OSU checked in at No. 11 in the official NCAA RPI on Nov. 11. The Big 12 ranks as the No. 4 conference in the RPI.

Game Recognize Game
   The Cowgirls have earned a number of weekly awards during the 2019 including:
   • Olyvia Dowell - Big 12 Freshman of the Week, Aug. 27
   • Kim Rodriguez - Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week, Sept. 10
   • Grace Yochum - Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week, Sept. 24
   • Elise Hawn - TopDrawerSoccer.com Women's Team of the Week, Oct. 15
   • Grace Yochum - United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division I Women's Player of the Week; Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week; TopDrawerSoccer.com Women's Team of the Week, Oct. 22
   • Julia Lenhardt - Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week, Nov. 1
   • Dani Greenlee - Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week, Nov. 1

Scoring Early & Often
   With career highs of seven goals and 12 assists through 21 games in 2019, senior Jaci Jones has surpassed the best scoring season of her career, racking up 26 points, which leads the Cowgirls. Jones' seven goals tops the five she had as a freshman in 2016, while the 12 assists surpasses the six of her freshman season and is the fifth most in a season in OSU history.

That Was Quick
   Gabriella Coleman recorded the fastest goal in Oklahoma State history when she found the back of the net just 18 seconds into the match against Oral Roberts on Sept. 1.
   Robin Rampey held the previous mark with a goal 45 seconds in against Southwest Missouri State in OSU's inaugural season in 1996.

Hat's Off
   Grace Yochum became the 12th player in OSU history to record a hat trick when she netted all three goals for the Cowgirls in a 3-0 victory at Iowa State.
   Yochum's hat trick was the first by a Cowgirl since Taylor Olson achieved the feat in 2017.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation
   Kim Rodriguez earned All-Big 12 and All-South Region honors in 2018 following a sophomore season in which she tied for the OSU team lead in scoring with 14 points on four goals and a team-high six assists. The defender started all 18 games for the Cowgirls and also led the team with 1,608 minutes played.
   But Rodriguez is not just a standout for the Cowgirls.
   After shining at the youth level for Mexico's national teams and playing in the 2014 and 2016 FIFA U-17 World Cups and the 2018 FIFA U-20 World Cup, Rodriguez was selected for the Mexico National Team in February 2019 and earned her first-career cap as a starter against Italy at the 2019 Cyprus Women's Cup.
   Most recently, Rodriguez played for Mexico at the 2019 Pan American Games, scoring her first-career goal vs. Panama and helping Mexico to a fifth-place finish at the games.

Fitting Right In
   A pair of new faces has added punch to the Cowgirls' offensive attack in 2019.
   Freshman Olyvia Dowell is third on the team with 18 points — five goals and eight assists — while her 67 shots are a team high. She earned All-Big 12 Second Team and Big 12 All-Freshman Team honors and is ranked No. 26 on the TopDrawerSoccer.com Midseason Women's Freshmen Top 100.
   After two seasons at Mississippi State, where she scored three goals and tallied five assists in 32 games, Gabriella Coleman transferred to OSU in 2019. In 21 games this season, she has eight goals, including four in Big 12 play, and her 49 shots is second on the team.

Sophomore Surge
   On the heels of a strong freshman season, Grace Yochum established herself as one of the Big 12's top players in her second year in a Cowgirl uniform, earning All-Big 12 First Team honors.
   • Yochum leads OSU and is fifth in the Big 12 with 11 goals.
   • Yochum's 11 goals are the most ever by a Cowgirl sophomore.
   • The 11 goals are the most by an OSU player since Courtney Dike had 13 in 2013.
   • With three multi-goal games this season, including a hat trick vs. Iowa State, Yochum is the first Cowgirl since Dike in '13 to have three multi-goal games in a season. Only two players in OSU history have had four multi-goal games in a season — Jolene Schweitzer (2003) and Robin Rampey (1996).
   • Yochum has scored a goal in four consecutive games.
   A year ago, Yochum was named to the 2018 Big 12 All-Freshman Team and was No. 53 on the TopDrawerSoccer.com Postseason Women's Freshmen Top 100 rankings. She played in all 18 games with 17 starts and tied for third on the Cowgirls with four goals while ranking fourth with nine points.

Dani D
   Dani Greenlee ranks among OSU's all-time best goalkeepers statistically as she is seventh on OSU's career saves list with 92, and her current goals-against average of 0.80 is fourth all time in program history.

International Stage
   A number of OSU standouts have gone on to represent their respective countries as members of national teams, including two — AD Franch and Courtney Dike — who have been on FIFA World Cup rosters.
   Franch has been a member of the United States Women's National Team since 2012 and earned her first-career cap in 2019 at the SheBelieves Cup. The former Cowgirl All-American was on the roster of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup champion U.S. squad.
   Dike was the first-ever Oklahoma State player to appear in the World Cup when she earned two caps for Nigeria in 2015, including starting against the eventual champion United States team. Dike was a four-time All-Big 12 Conference forward for the Cowgirls from 2013-16.
   Other Cowgirls who have earned national team status include:
   • Coumba Sow was a starting midfielder for the Switzerland National Team at the 2019 Algarve Cup. Sow was part of the OSU program in 2016 and 2017, scoring three goals in 23 games for the Cowgirls' 2017 Big 12 Conference championship squad.
   • Current Cowgirl and All-Big 12 defender Kim Rodriguez received her first call up to the Mexico National Team in Feb. 2019; she started for Mexico at the 2019 Cyprus Women's Cup and again in the 2019 Pan American Games in Peru.
   • Other OSU players who have competed for national teams include 2003 Cowgirl goalie Kathrin Lehmann (Switzerland) and 2019 freshman forward Peyton Vincze (Wales).