MSU Soccer Opens Season Friday At Home With Belmont

The Murray State Women's Soccer squad opens the 2008 season Friday when they host the Belmont Bruins in a 3 p.m. match at Cutchin Field.

“Obviously, Belmont is a much improved team over the last few seasons,” MSU Head Coach Beth Acreman said. “This is going to be a tough opener.”

Acreman wants to see better play in the Belmont match as the team worked this week on cleaning up some areas from last weekend's 2-1 exhibition loss at Mercer.

“We worked this week on some things and we should see improvement from our effort at Mercer,” Acreman added.

Game notes

The Racers and Bruins have played twice with MSU coming away with a season-opening 6-1 win at a tournament at Southeast Missouri State in 2002, after losing to Belmont in Nashville, Tenn. by a 4-1 count in 2000.

Each team has played one exhibition contest. The Racers lost 2-1 last weekend in Macon, Ga. at Mercer, while the Bruins played the Mexican U20 national team and lost 2-0 in Decatur, Ala.

Murray State won a program record 11 matches in 2007 and finished 11-8. They were third in the Ohio Valley Conference with a 6-3 mark.

Belmont was 13-6-3 in 2007 and finished third in the Atlantic Sun Conference with a 6-4-1 record.

MSU's Sunday match at Cutchin with North Dakota State has been moved to 11 a.m.

Belmont has a Sunday match with Vanderbilt.

MSU's Rebekah Clay begins her senior season with 22 career goals. She needs three to catch Jackie Thomas (2000-03) for second place on the list. Theresa Reedy (2001-04) is tops with 34 goals. Senior Krista Muilkens is in fourth place with 20.

Sophomore goalkeeper Tara Isbell enters the match with a career goals against average of 1.28, the best all-time in MSU Soccer history. She has four career shutouts. The MSU record is 15 held by Karen Fitzharris (2000-03).

Murray State is 5-3 all-time in home openers. In 2007 they broke a three-year losing streak with a 2-0 shutout of Lipscomb.

Here are all of MSU's home openers

2000 Won Troy State 4-0

2001 Won IPFW 5-3

2002 Won Western Ill. 5-0

2003 Won Missouri State 2-1

2004 Lost Western Ky. 3-0

2005 Lost Southern Miss. 3-0

2006 Lost Indiana State 2-0

2007 Won Lipscomb 2-0

Murray State University Athletics

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