Milwaukee, Wis. - The seedings for the Northern Athletic Collegiate Conference (NACC) tournament are in and our Concordia University Chicago (CUC) Cougars women's soccer team have clinched a spot as the #7 team. The Cougars (7-8-4, 3-5-4 NACC) will take on the #2 seeded Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) Raiders (13-4-2, 9-1-2 NACC) at MSOE on Saturday, November 2nd with a 12:00 pm start time. This will be the first time the CUC team has made the fall NACC tournament since 2018, and the first time the team has made it while being led by Head Coach Eddie Garza.
Matching Up With the Raiders
The Cougars competed against the Raiders on their home turf roughly two-thirds of the way through the regular season, where they fell 5-0. In the game, the Cougars struggled to get many shots off as the lone shot and shot on goal on the day came from freshman Natalie Flores (Placentia, Calif.). The other players to highlight for the Cougars was junior Brooke Sheriff (Simi Valley, Calif.) who had 11 saves, a career high, and freshman Katelyn Wagner (Lagrange, Ky.) who got some action and had four saves. Between both goalkeepers, they faced a total of 20 shots on goal.
The Raiders controlled the game, where they scored five total goals. The Raiders team is heavily led by their upperclassmen where the youngest goal scorers on the day came from two juniors. The first and second goals were scored by junior, Faith Papazoglou, the third was scored by senior, Addison Spilman, the fourth by graduate student, Grace Quinn, and the fifth and final goal came from junior, Rosario Etcheverria-Abuin. Overall, the Raiders had 36 total shots where 20 were shots on goal. The Raiders were also just one corner short of being double-digits, where they took nine total throughout the duration of the game.
Stat Leaders
Cougars
Both with three total goals on the season and leading the Cougars in scoring are junior Pamela Saldivar (Chicago, Ill.) and graduate student Allie Brown (St. Louis, Mo.). Saldivar also leads the team in assists with three. The Cougar team shares the wealth when it comes to scoring where the next leader goal-scorers, all tied with two, are freshman Mia Hirayama (Mililani, Hawaii), senior Julisa Diaz (Chicago, Ill.), sophomore Izzy Fairless (Royal Oak, Mich.), and freshman Flores. Hirayama also has two assists, whereas everyone else with an assist is sitting with one.
Raiders
Quinn, mentioned before, leads the Raiders with eight goals and six assists on the season. Following closely behind, junior Elizabeth Kuhn has seven goals and six assists. Also with seven goals is Spilman and sophomore Claire Bradford, who have four and three assists respectively. Other players to look out for are Papazoglou with five goals and five assists, and junior Maggie Thillman with six goals and three assists.
Performance in Last Five Games
Cougars
The Cougars struggled in their last five competitions where they went 0-3-2 all of which were NACC matchups. The games were split between home and away matches, where the Cougars played MSOE, Benedictine University, Concordia University Wisconsin, Edgewood College and Division Street rivals, Dominican University. Within the five games the Cougars were only able to score one goal against the Dominican Stars which came from Saldivar from a penalty kick. Totaling only 21 shots on goal for all of these five games, the Cougars will have to focus on getting that number up in games to come, something Coach Garza has consistently touched on throughout the season.
Raiders
In the last five games for the Raiders, all of which were NACC competitors, they had matchups against Rockford University, Aurora University, St. Norbert College, Benedictine, and Wisconsin Lutheran College, where they went 4-0-1. The Raiders, known for taking many shots, took 131 over the past five games, which is an average of 26 per game.
Tournament Schedule
Quarterfinals - Saturday, November 2nd.
Semifinals - Tuesday, November 5th.
Championship - Saturday, November 9th.
What's Next
Focusing on one game at a time, the Cougars will compete Saturday, November 2nd in the quarterfinals of the tournament. Contingent on a win, the Cougars will move on to the semifinals on November 5th, to take on the winners of the Dominican vs Marian game. Coverage for all things CUC women's soccer can be found at cucougars.com/coverage.
