GREENWOOD, Ind. – An in-depth look around the Great Midwest Athletic Conference women’s soccer landscape through two weeks into the regular season.
Quick Hits: Ursuline’s quest to defend the 2014 G-MAC regular season and tournament titles is right on track with a current 3-0-0 conference record…Cedarville is 2-0-0 while both the Yellow Jackets and Arrows are 4-1-0 overall…Kentucky Wesleyan and Davis & Elkins are both above .500 overall and in conference play…UC’s Offensive Player of the Year Vanessa Consiglio hasn’t skipped a beat after a sensational junior campaign…She is the league’s co-leader in a multitude of offensive categories as the Arrows have outscored opponents by a combined score of 25-4…The G-MAC will have several viable NCAA DII All-American candidates…Combined, teams from the G-MAC are 8-14-1 this year and have compiled a 4-7-1 in non-conference competition…Preseason No. 2 Trevecca Nazarene was able to get tracked with its first win of the season on Thursday.
Supreme Single-Game Superlative: Kentucky Wesleyan’s 17-goal outburst vs. Salem International not only marked the single-game record in the conference’s young history, but also established a new NCAA single-game high for the current season…Alabama-Huntsville had scored 14 goals against Oakwood and Ursuline tied the G-MAC’s previous record for the third time with 12 earlier this year…The Panthers have played all three games against G-MAC opponents so far after beginning the fall on a West Virginia road swing.
Best Attendance: Cedarville entertained 352 fans in Thursday’s affair against Alderson Broaddus…They were treated to a 5-1 win for the home team…Three other games around the G-MAC have registered an attendance of 300 or more fans.
G-MAC Leaders: Miorelli (CED) leads the league in points with a balanced sheets of four goals and eight assists…Her assist total ranks first in the G-MAC…Consiglio (URS) and Giantsopoulos (D&E) are two Canadians taking the league by storm with six goals apiece.
Looking Ahead: Circle Oct. 1 on your calendar with a showdown looming between Cedarville and Ursuline in Pepper Pike…The current standings are essentially broken into four tiers of teams and it will be interesting to see which schools can gain any separation as the season progresses…The G-MAC Championship will still feature six teams, so two will be eliminated in late October before the postseason gets underway…Ursuline will battle it out against future 2017 G-MAC member Lake Erie on Oct. 20…Very few non-regional opponents remain on the schedule with the likes of Brescia, Fairmont State, Indiana (PA), and Pitt-Johnstown, left.
Rising Rookies: Davis & Elkins freshman Kat Giantsopoulos has proven to be a scoring machine in her first year at the college level…She enters the weekend tied for the league lead in goals (6) with UC’s Consiglio…Another player for the Senators playing an unheralded role is freshman goalkeeper Lauren Hill…Hill boasts the G-MAC best save percentage and has stopped 27 total shots from opposing teams.
Helium Watch: Cedarville’s stock is on the rise with the return of two-time G-MAC Offensive Player of the Year Jacoby Ziegler…Hanna Harris has been a brick wall in front of the net with a meager 0.74 goals against average and a shutout…The Yellow Jackets are winners of three straight and haven’t endured a loss this fall…Senior Kaitlyn Stiles has also scored five goals while Olivia Moore and Kaleigh Rowlands have each booted game-winning goals…The Yellow Jackets are balanced on both sides of the ball and jumped out on opponents in the opening period, outscoring them 12-1.
Re-Writing Records: Coming into the year with 40 goals since 2012, Cedarville’s Ziegler has posted five more already…Cedarville’s Grace Miorelli has 21 career assists and now ranks second all-time in G-MAC history only behind Consiglio…Quietly, Miorelli has scored four goals and has climbed to fourth all-time in goals scored…Carly Gregory, also of Cedarville, has taken over at No. 1 in total games played (65)…Gregory started the year tied with former teammates Kristie Wolff and Elise Hurley at 60…Consiglio (110) and Ziegler (106) stack up at No. 1, 2 in the current career points race.
On the National Radar: Ranked No. 23 nationally, West Virginia Wesleyan was on the ropes before emerging with a double-overtime win against Cedarville…Bellarmine, now ranked 15th in the latest NSCAA Coaches Poll, bested Ursuline by a narrow 2-0 margin on Sept. 6…Alderson Broaddus opened the season against No. 9 Wisconsin-Parkside…UC is ranked in the top five nationally in assists, goals and points…Cedarville has claim to a top-10 standing in all three of those categories as well…Ursuline’s Cassie Cripe/Cedarville’s Grace Miorelli are tied for the NCAA lead in assists per game at 1.25 and total assists (5) with six other players…Consiglio and Giantsopoulos are tied for sixth overall in goals…Ursuline and Cedarville are ranked fourth and sixth, respectively, in total team points…Salem International’s Bre’Ana Felix made 19 saves, an NCAA DII single-game high this year.
NCAA Championship Watch: The G-MAC receives its first automatic qualifier in the sport of women’s soccer this year for the NCAA Championship…The automatic berth will go to the winner of the G-MAC Championship…An additional at-large selection(s) may also be in play depending on how the remainder of the regular season unfolds.