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November 3, 2006 > Sports > Despite win over Houston, soccer misses C-USA tournament

Despite win over Houston, soccer misses C-USA tournament

By Matt McCabe | Thresher Editorial Staff

Despite a 1-0 season finale win over the University of Houston on Friday, Rice (11-6-1) will miss the postseason conference tournament for the first time in the history of the program. Tulsa University tied the University of Central Florida on the final day of the regular season, giving the Golden Hurricane the eighth and final spot in the C-USA Tournament.

“It’s a little bit frustrating,” head coach Chris Huston said. “The girls did everything they needed to do this weekend, but they didn’t do it the weekend before or a couple weekends before that. The reason we’re not at the conference tournament is because we didn’t win enough games to get there.”

Huston said the season was like a roller coaster. The Owls beat Texas for the first time in program history and set the record for the longest unbeaten streak — nine games to open the season — but missed the postseason by losing six of the final nine games.

Even with a sub-par conference record, however, the Owls had three players named to all-Conference USA teams. Junior defender Beth Martin, the pre-season C-USA defender of the year, was named to the first team, senior defender Laura Barber was named to the second team and forward Erin Scott was named to the all-freshman team.

Barber may have sealed her spot on the second team by playing the entire game against UH last Friday — the last of her collegiate career — with a torn ACL.

“Laura is going to be a big loss for us,” Huston said. “One thing that a lot of coaches were impressed with was the heart that she had. She went out there with [a torn] ACL and played 90 minutes for her team.”

Barber was one of four seniors in the starting lineup against Houston. Midfielder Vanessa Serrano, midfielder Maria Fadool and goalkeeper Amy McClintock will all be difficult to replace in 2007. Senior goalkeeper Kristina Hoban only saw 53 minutes in goal for Rice this year, but her absence will force Rice to train an entirely new set of keepers next season.

Scott, in her first year, managed to put her name in the Rice record books with new program records for shots, 71, and shots-on-goal, 33. She also led the team with eight goals, which ties her for second all-time in Rice history behind Caitlin Robbins, who tallied 14 last season as a redshirt freshman.

Entering last weekend’s game against UH, the Owls knew they had to win to have any chance of qualifying for the C-USA tournament. It took 89 minutes of soccer before a goal was scored. With 53 seconds left on the game clock, Scott notched her eighth goal of the season after making a long run down the field. Junior forward Clory Martin sent her a deep pass, and Scott beat the Cougar keeper to seal Rice’s victory. The assist gave Martin her team-leading sixth to go along with a season total of six goals.

Huston said the feeling of not playing soccer in November is something she is not accustomed to but that this season, mired in injuries, is not a complete loss.

“The season isn’t a failure if the kids can learn anything from it,” she said. “We’re going to give them a couple of weeks off [scrimmage play], but then we’ll be back to fitness and workouts next week.”

End of article

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