Sept. 9, 2004

cape Girardeau, Mo. - The Southeast Missouri State University women's soccer team faces the first road test of the season on Sunday at Northwestern.

The Otahkians, 3-1, will battle the Wildcats of the Big 10 Conferences in a noon match on Sunday in Evanston, Ill. Northwestern is 2-2 with wins over Colorado College and Southern Utah and overtime losses to Brigham Young and Missouri.

"I am really looking forward to the game at Northwestern," said Southeast coach Heather Nelson. "Northwestern has always been ranked ahead of us and they are big, physical team that plays a similar system to ours. We are more of a possession style team with good team speed. It will be an interesting matchup.

"Samford from the OVC plays Northwestern on Friday night and so we will see how we do as compared to how Samford does. It would be great for our conference if both Southeast and Samford could beat a Big 10 team on the same weekend."

Nelson credits her team depth as a big part of the 3-1 start. "We would not have beaten Xavier last Sunday if it had not been for our bench," she said. "Molli Beard came off the bench and scored two goals including the game winner and Marla Gianino and Alaina Lacopo came off the bench to give us a real lift after we had lost an emotional game to 14th ranked Illinois on Friday night."