Cowgirl Soccer Set For NCAA Tourney Play In North Carolina

April 28, 2021 | Cowgirl Soccer

Game Notes (PDF)

10-seed Oklahoma State (12-3-1)
vs. South Alabama (14-8-1)

NCAA Women's Soccer Championship • Second Round
Fri., April 30 • 6 p.m. (CST) • Greensboro, N.C.
Bryan Park Soccer Complex

TV/Video: NCAA.com (YouTube)
Radio: None
Live Stats: NCAA.com
Twitter In-Game Updates: @CowgirlFC

About Oklahoma State
   • Oklahoma State ended the regular season with a 12-3-1 record and earned a berth in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship for the 13th time in program history. After a first-round bye as the No. 10 national seed, the Cowgirls will face South Alabama in second round action Friday in Greensboro, N.C., with the winner moving on to the Sweet 16 to face the Texas A&M-South Florida winner Wednesday, May 5, in Cary, N.C.
   • The Cowgirls are coming off a championship season in 2019 as they went 16-3-3 overall and claimed the Big 12 Conference regular season title with a 7-1-1 league mark. OSU advanced to the second round of the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship and finished ranked as high as No. 13 nationally.
   • The Cowgirls return 16 letterwinners from 2019, including eight players who started at least 10 games.
   • The 2020 season is the 25th in program history; over the first 24, OSU posted a 289-164-54 (.623) record. Head coach Colin Carmichael entered his 16th season at the helm in 2020 with a 206-84-41 mark.

Cowgirls At The NCAA Championship
   • OSU is making its 13th NCAA Women's Soccer Championship appearance in program history and second straight. The Cowgirls have earned a tourney bid six times in the last eight years and 12 times in the last 15 years. Their first NCAA berth came in 2003; they made six-straight trips from 2006-11 and back-to-back appearances in 2013-14, 2016-17 and 2019-20.
   • OSU is 10-9-5 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.
   • In OSU's last NCAA appearance in 2019, the Cowgirls, who were a No. 3 national seed, opened with a 1-0 win over South Dakota State on their home field before dropping their second-round match to Santa Clara in Los Angeles.

USA Roots
   The Oklahoma State-South Alabama matchup brings with it some intriguing storylines in regards to the OSU coaching staff.
   OSU head coach Colin Carmichael played for the South Alabama men's team from 1989-92. Following his playing career, he spent the 1993 season as an assistant coach on the men's team. Carmichael graduated from USA in 1993 and earned his master's degree from the school in 1996.
   OSU assistant coach Karen Hancock was the first-ever USA women's soccer coach and guided the program for two seasons in 1994 and 1995. Carmichael joined Hancock's staff as an assistant coach for both seasons, and together they led the Jaguars to a 21-13-2 record.
   Following the 1995 season, Hancock and Carmichael left for Stillwater to start the Oklahoma State program — Hancock as the Cowgirls' head coach and Carmichael as her assistant.
   OSU is 2-1-0 all time against South Alabama, with each of those games being played on the road in Mobile, Ala. The Cowgirls won the first meeting in their inaugural season in 1996, a 3-2 double overtime victory, before dropping a 1-0 contest in 1997. The last meeting between the two came in 1999 with OSU claiming a 5-0 win.

Winning Is A Habit
     Now in its 25th season, Oklahoma State soccer has built itself into an established winner.
   • OSU has earned a berth in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship 12 of the last 15 years (beginning in 2006) and six of the last eight.
   • 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.

High Five
   For the second consecutive season, Oklahoma State had five players selected as All-Big 12 Conference performers while a pair of Cowgirl freshmen were also honored.
   Earning 2020 All-Big 12 First Team honors for the Cowgirls were defender Kim Rodriguez and forward Olyvia Dowell, while defender Charmé Morgan, midfielder Grace Yochum and forward Gabriella Coleman were named to the All-Big 12 Second Team.
   Additionally, defender Kionna Simon and midfielder Grace Dennis were chosen for the Big 12 All-Freshman Team, with Simon being a unanimous selection.
   OSU's five All-Big 12 honorees marks just the fourth time in program history five or more Cowgirls have garnered all-conference recognition and is tied for the second-highest total in school history. A program-record seven Cowgirls earned All-Big 12 status in 2011 while OSU previously had five All-Big 12 performers in 2010 and 2019.
   Rodriguez earned All-Big 12 First Team accolades for the second consecutive season, and the senior is now a three-time all-conference performer in her career. Both distinctions place her in rare company – she is only the sixth player in OSU history to earn first-team status twice or more in a career, and she is just the eighth Cowgirl to be named all-conference three or more times.

We're Going Streaking
   OSU's recent eight-game winning streak, which began with a win over Texas on Oct. 23, 2020 and ended with a loss to TCU on April 3, 2021, tied for the fifth longest in program history and was the Cowgirls' longest since 2011.
   A list of the Cowgirls' longest winning streaks:
Winning Streak             Year(s)
15                       2011
10                      2003, 2002
9                        2008
8                        2020-21, 2009

Elite Company
   Kim Rodriguez became the fifth All-American in Cowgirl Soccer history in 2019 when she was named to the United Soccer Coaches All-America Second Team as a defender. She joined a list of OSU All-Americans that included Yolanda Odenyo, Melinda Mercado, AD Franch and Haley Woodard.
   Rodriguez was also a unanimous All-Big 12 First Team selection a year ago as she recorded three goals and seven assists and anchored a defense that posted 10 shutouts and allowed just 18 goals in 22 games.
   In 2018, Rodriguez earned All-Big 12 and All-South Region honors 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.
   Rodriguez entered her final collegiate season having tallied nine goals and 16 assists in 61 matches.
   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.
   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.

Scoring In Bunches
   Grace Yochum has established herself as one of the Big 12's top scorers and earned All-Big 12 First Team honors as both a sophomore and junior.
   In 49 career games, Yochum has amassed 25 goals, which is tied for eighth on OSU's all-time list. With potentially two more seasons left after this one due to 2020-21 being a "COVID season," Yochum could challenge the program record of 35 goals held by Yolanda Odenyo and Jolene Schweitzer.
   This season marks Yochum's second straight of reaching double digits in goals as the junior midfielder has found the back of the net 10 times. She has had two streaks of six consecutive games with a goal spanning this season — Oct. 6, 2019 vs. K-State-Sept. 18, 2020 vs. Iowa State and Nov. 12, 2020 vs. OU-March 27, 2021 vs. OU — and she leads the NCAA this season with eight game-winning goals.
   In 2019, Yochum led OSU and was fifth in the Big 12 with 11 goals, the most ever by a Cowgirl sophomore and the most by an OSU player since 2013. She posted three multi-goal games, including a hat trick vs. Iowa State, to become the first Cowgirl since '13 to have three games in a season with multiple goals.
   In 2018, Yochum was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team after scoring four goals in 18 games.

In The Rankings
   After being peaking at No. 4 during the fall season and finishing at No. 12 in the Nov. 24 poll, OSU is 19th in this week's United Soccer Coaches poll and also checks in at No. 15 in the TopDrawerSoccer.com rankings. The Cowgirls have appeared in the national rankings for 30 consecutive weeks dating back to last season, which they ended ranked as high as 13th in the final polls.

Quick Kicks
   • Grace Yochum leads the NCAA in game-winning goals with eight, and her 10 goals rank 12th.
   • Olyvia Dowell, Gabriella Coleman and Grace Yochum each rank in the top 10 in the Big 12 in goals and have combined for 25 of OSU's 30 goals this season.
   • With 10 goals and four assists, Olyvia Dowell's 24 points ranks 16th nationally this season. The 10 goals puts her 12th nationally.
   • Kim Rodriguez moved into ninth on OSU's all-time assists list with a pair of assists against Little Rock. Rodriguez has 19 assists in her career, including three this season.
   • Emily Plotz has posted five shutouts for the Cowgirls this season and has 19 shutouts in her career — 14 of those came during her career at Stetson.