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Sept. 13, 2006 THIS WEEK: Pacific Lutheran (3-1-0) opens the Northwest Conference portion of its schedule this weekend with a pair of home contests, both slated for a noon kickoff. In fact, both of these matches will mark the first time that the Lutes have played at home this season. The Pacific Boxers will be in town on Saturday, followed by the Lewis & Clark Pioneers on Sunday. In their preseason poll, the nine NWC coaches picked PLU to place fifth, Lewis & Clark to finish sixth and Pacific to place eighth. ABOUT THE BOXERS: Pacific is 2-0-2 overall and 0-0-1 in the Northwest Conference after Tuesday’s 1-1 tie with Linfield. Pacific has also defeated Cascade and Oregon Tech and tied Northwest. Senior forward Laura Hill has three goals and three assists to lead her team in scoring. Shannon Tillman has played all but 26 minutes in goal and has given up only three scores this season. Pacific finished seventh in the NWC a year ago with a 4-11-1 record. ABOUT THE PIONEERS: Lewis & Clark is 2-2 in early season action, including wins over Central of Iowa and Albertson and losses to Augsburg and Western Oregon. Lisa Housman, Alison Hudson and Brittany Larson all have scored two goals for the Pioneers. Hudson leads the team with five points. Nora Germano has played about 83 percent of the minutes in goal and has a 1.20 goals against average. This is a third-year program that, in its initial campaign, won only two matches and was 0-16 in the conference. Last year, the Pioneers placed sixth in the Northwest Conference with a 5-9-2 record and were 7-10-3 overall. CLEAN SHEETS: No, we’re not talking about laundry. Clean sheets, in this case, means shutouts, and so far this season the Lutes have three of them. PLU blanked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 3-0 in the season opener, and last week stopped Cal Lutheran, 1-0, and Evergreen State, 2-0. Only Redlands, which garnered a 2-0 win over the Lutes, has scored in 360 minutes of action. A key reason for last week’s shutouts was the play of central defender Brittney Beitel (Puyallup, Wash. / Emerald Ridge HS), a junior transfer from the University of Idaho. Her outstanding play earned her a nomination for Northwest Conference defensive player of the week. There is plenty of credit to go around, however, and certainly the performance of all three PLU goalkeepers proved crucial. Sophomore Amanda Tschauner (Yakima, Wash. / West Valley HS) had three saves while playing all 90 minutes against Cal Lutheran, while junior Alyssa Blackburn (Sandy Utah / Judge Memorial Catholic HS) and sophomore Kamryn Morgan (Poulsbo, Wash. / North Kitsap HS) shared the shutout against Evergreen. FRESHMAN SHINES: Freshman forward Jenny McKinsey (Greenacres, Wash. / Central Valley HS), who has started all four PLU matches, probably won’t ever forget the Lutes’ Saturday afternoon contest at Evergreen State in Olympia. McKinsey scored her first collegiate goal – and her second – in the Lutes’ 2-0 win. She got the Lutes on the board at the 5:28 mark, and then tallied her second at 69:16. THE COACH: Jerrod Fleury, now in his fifth season as women's soccer head coach at his alma mater, is 39-37-6 at PLU. - PLU - |