OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma City Stars women's soccer team opens up the 2024 campaign on Tuesday evening at 5:00 p.m. against the Bethany Swedes at Brian Harvey Field.
Tuesday, Sept. 3
5:00 p.m. – Oklahoma City (2-0, 0-0 SAC) vs Bethany (0-2, 0-0 KCAC)
Location: Oklahoma City | Brian Harvey Field
TV: SAC Sports Network
Live Stats: ocusports.com
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Abby Russell
The top goal scorer of last year's team returns after a big sophomore season after hauling in first-team all-conference honors by scoring a team-high nine goals while also leading the squad with seven assists.
Throughout the season, Russell has gone on a four-game scoring streak from Aug. 30 - Sept. 16 and then put together another streak of scoring in three straight games from Oct. 17-24.
Russell scored her first goal of the season on Thursday against Our Lady of the Lake in the Stars home-opener as she netted the game-winner in the 82nd minute to lead Oklahoma City to a 2-1 win.
Reese Roberts
The number-two goal scorer off last year's team Reese Roberts comes back after a stellar rookie campaign receiving second-team all-conference accolades.
Roberts went on a streak from Sept. 26 - Oct.3 scoring in three straight games while delivering a game-winning goal from 40 yards out to take down USAO for the first time since 2018 in a regular season match-up on Oct. 3.
Roberts scored her lone goal of the 2024 season in the season-opener against Jarvis Christian.
Piper Nichols
In her two seasons at OCU, Nichols has been a player who rarely comes off the field for the Stars. Nichols has played in 37 games over her two seasons at Oklahoma City and has started in every one of them.
Despite being one of the top defenders in the conference, Nichols found the back of the net one time last season coming on Oct. 24 in a 2-1 win over SAGU.
SCOUTING THE SWEDES…
It was a rough 2023 campaign for Bethany women's soccer as the Swedes tallied just one win last season which came over McPherson College. The Swedes record finished at 1-15-1 overall with a tie coming to a familiar Sooner Athletic Conference member in Central Christian.
The Swedes only scored six goals last season, coming from three players scoring two each. All three scorers are returners to the team this year Skyler Armstrong and Andrea Garza who split with an assist each as well as Jysell Sampedro who was a starter in 11 games.
The team averaged a .057 shot percentage and fell into a 10-game losing streak scoring just two goals in that span from Aug. 28 to Oct. 7 as the winless period began with Oklahoma City.
Through two games the Swedes stand 0-2 without a goal so far this season. Bethany's first loss came to Sooner Athletic Conference member Central Christian before falling to Mount Marty on Friday, 1-0.
SERIES HISTORY
The two schools will be squaring off for the fourth straight season as Oklahoma City holds a 3-0 record over Bethany having yet to allow a goal and outscoring the Swedes 7-0 throughout the series.
The Stars traveled to Lindsborg to take on Bethany earning its first win of the season by a score of 3-0.
After going into the break scoreless last year, Oklahoma City scored its first goal in the 60th minute coming from the foot of McLain Moss. Just a minute later OCU capitalized and scored again as Reese Roberts netted the first goal of her career. The Stars placed one more in the back of the net in the 81st minute just to add some insurance coming from Ruby Nichols.
Oklahoma City allowed just one shot over the contest as Gemma Harvey made the lone save.
FOLLOW THE STARS
Find all news, scores, highlights, and updates on ocusports.com, Twitter (@ocustars), Instagram (@ocustars), Facebook (Oklahoma City University Stars), and Youtube (@ocustars). Catch every OCU home game and select away games on the SAC Sports Network.
