CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois University women’s soccer team has announced its tentative schedule for the 2020 campaign, head coach Grant Williams announced on Monday.
The Salukis made tremendous strides in the program’s inaugural season, as Southern went 5-10-2 with a roster of 25 players, 17 of which were freshmen playing collegiate soccer for the first time. The Salukis will commemorate another ‘first’ this season, as the 2020 campaign will serve as the program’s first in the Missouri Valley Conference.
“It was great that we didn’t have to add the pressure and expectations of Missouri Valley Conference play in our first season,” Williams said. “That was by design. In doing that, we were able to play matches and gain experience that we will be better for. There will still be a learning curve as our kids get their first taste of conference play. There is a little more on the line in conference games and teams play a bit harder because of that. But we will be ready, prepared and we are looking forward to it.”
The 2020 schedule has been a work in progress for quite some time, as Williams has had to remain flexible. Many schools have had to adjust their schedules based on restrictions from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
“I’ve had six schedule changes in the last two weeks,” Williams said. “I’ve lost two home matches, we added a regular-season game against Western Kentucky (WKU) and added an exhibition at Missouri. The number of changes that we have had to make due to Covid-19 has made it difficult to lock down a precise schedule.”
SIU’s 2020 schedule consists of many familiar foes. Seven of Southern’s eight non-conference matches will be against programs that they faced a year ago, beginning with SIU’s home opener against Eastern Illinois on August 21. The Salukis and the Panthers battled to a 0-0, double overtime draw on Oct. 10, 2019.
Southern’s match against EIU will be the first of six-straight against opponents from 2019. The Salukis will follow with three-straight road matches, opening the road swing at Lipscomb (Aug. 23) before traveling to Morehead State (Aug. 28) and Belmont (Aug. 30). The Salukis defeated Morehead State, 2-1 in extra time on Ellie Lewis’ game-winner last season and made Liz Brechtel’s goal in the 61st minute stand up in a 1-0 win over the Belmont Bruins on Aug. 30, 2019.
“We certainly don’t forget about last season,” Williams said of the common opponents between the 2019 and 2020 schedules. “But we aren’t going to make a mistake and think because we fared well last season that we are going to do well this season. On the flip side, Lipscomb (L, 0-6) put it to us. We don’t want our kids to forget a loss like that and we want it to serve as motivation to do better.”
The Salukis will then host Tennessee Tech on Sept. 4, a program that Southern beat, albeit in an exhibition match, a year ago. SIU will then tangle with its sister school, SIUE, in Edwardsville on Sept. 6 and will close out non-conference play with a home match against WKU on Sept. 20.
SIU will open its first season of Missouri Valley Conference play when it hosts Valparaiso on Sept. 18 at 6:30 pm. Southern will then travel to take on the defending MVC Champions, the Loyola Ramblers, on Sept. 26 and will conclude the conference season with an away match at Missouri State on Nov. 1.
The top-four Valley teams advance to the 2020 MVC Women’s Soccer Championship with the higher seeds scheduled to host beginning on Nov. 8. The date of the conference tournament, as well as Southern’s mid-week conference game against Evansville, are still in flux, as the Valley is looking into shifting its tournament schedule to better align with the start of the 2020 NCAA Tournament. SIU’s full schedule can be found here.
