Kentucky Travels West to Missouri for Continuation of SEC Play
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky women’s soccer
will hit the road for the first time in three weeks on Thursday night for a
7:30 p.m. ET match with the Missouri Tigers at the Audrey J. Walton Soccer
Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
The match will be shown live on the SEC
Network+, ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app on mobile phones, laptops, computers,
smart phones and tablets. Ben Arnet (pxp) and Simon Rose (color) will have the
call from Columbia.
Kentucky will be looking for its first Southeastern
Conference win of the season on Thursday night, and additionally, its first win
over Missouri since the Tigers joined the SEC in 2012. Missouri is one of just
two SEC teams that Kentucky head coach Jon Lipsitz has never beaten is his
career at UK. The Wildcats are 0-4-0 in their four attempts against the Tigers,
with three 2-1 defeats and one of those coming in overtime (2013).
UK is coming off a 1-1 draw with the Alabama
Crimson Tide on Sunday afternoon. The Wildcats dominated the run of play early
in the match, but were unable to convert a goal off of 28 shots from the run of
play, using an 85th-minute equalizing penalty by Katy Keen to earn the result.
UK’s 28 shots were a season high, and just the seventh time in the Lipsitz era
that UK generated that much offense in the shots category.
Sunday’s match with the Tide was also UK’s
annual Kick-Cancer Match, in which all Kentucky players wore yellow kits to
represent their support in the fight against pediatric cancer. The jerseys are
currently being auctioned off at UKathletics.com with all proceeds going towards
the fight against pediatric cancer at the UK Medical Center in Lexington.
UK is 4-3-2 on the year overall and 0-1-1 in the
SEC after Sunday’s result with the Tide. The first release of the NCAA RPI that
came out on Monday afternoon had UK slotted in at No. 38. The Tigers are 65th
in the RPI currently.
The Missouri Tigers are seeking a second consecutive
win on their season Thursday night after beating Weber State last Sunday, 3-1. They
are now 6-2-0 on the year. Mizzou currently holds a 1-1-0 record after a loss to
Tennessee last week and sits on three points in the league table. Missouri
topped Ole Miss in early September with a 5-0 victory to start league play.
Thursday night’s match will be the seventh meeting
against the two opponents all-time. Missouri has the edge on the series with a
5-1-1 record against UK. The Wildcats’ lone win came in 2004 with a 1-0 win in
Lexington. The draw was from the first meeting between the two back in 1998.
For
the latest on the Kentucky women’s soccer team, follow @UKWomensSoccer on Twitter,
Instagram and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
