Sept. 25, 2003

For the third consecutive season, the University of Kentucky women’s soccer team opens Southeastern Conference play against the Vanderbilt Commodores (4-2-1). The Cats will put their four-match win streak over VU on the line Friday evening at 6 p.m. CDT at the Vanderbilt Soccer Complex. Vanderbilt leads the all-time series by a 10-7 margin.

Kentucky (2-5-1) enters the match looking for its first goal in 252 minutes of play. The Cats last registered a goal in the first half of UK’s Sept. 13 match against Rutgers. The UK attack has since been blanked against Arizona and Arizona State.

If the Cats figure to dent the net Friday evening, they’ll have to do it against a stingy Commodore defense. Senior goalkeepers Stacee Sproul and Esther Thompson have registered a collective 0.54 goals-against average in seven matches and haven’t allowed more than one goal in any match during the 2003 campaign.

Kentucky Coach Warren Lipka, in his 12th season with the Cats, begins his 11th season of SEC play with a 48-25 record. Lipka’s career SEC win count is second only to the 59 wins tallied by Florida’s Becky Burleigh. Lipka looks forward to the Cats establishing themselves in conference play.

“It’s always nice to get conference play started and once again we’re going to play a very tough Vanderbilt team,” Lipka said.

“They don’t allow many scoring opportunities, so we’ll have our work cut out for us Friday.”

Live scoring for Friday’s match will be available at www.vucommodores.com.