A pair of convincing victories earned Northwestern State not only one, but two Southland Conference weekly awards.
Two-goal wins against Lamar and UTRGV earned conference weekly awards for Taylor Spitzer and Emma Pethel, the league announced on Oct. 29.
Spitzer, a junior from Allen, Texas, scored two goals and recorded two assists during the weekend to earn SLC Offensive Player of the Week. With the performances, she took over the SLC lead in points during league play with 16, as Spitzer has scored six goals and dished out four assists.
She found the back of the net Friday to put the game away in the second half with a goal from the middle of the box. Sunday, she wasted little time making an impact on the game, scoring just a few minute into the contest off a corner kick.
She later sent in a perfect cross to Paige Baumgartner for her second assist of the weekend to put the finishing touches on the 3-1 win over UTRGV.
On the second goal, she received the corner kick from freshman Emma Pethel, who earned SLC Defensive Player of the Week. It was one of three assists for the freshman during the weekend and she has four assists in the past three games.
Pethel, Spitzer and Isabella Ruggiano are all tied for the conference lead in assists with four.
While Pethel had three assists in the two contests, she mainly is worried about keeping opponents from scoring, and her back line made several plays during the two games to keep the opposition off the board.
Overall, her defense led a back line that only surrendered one goal in the two games, as the Demons outscored opponents 5-1 in the two triumphs.
Pethel is the second consecutive Demons defender to win the award (Jessica Spitzer) and the third different one to win the weekly award, as Alina Graf collected the award Sept. 24.
Spitzer is the first Demons player to win the offensive award since Spitzer herself did it last September.
Spitzer, Pethel and the rest of the Demons gear up for the most important game of the season, a matchup at Stephen F. Austin to decide which team wins the regular season conference crown and the top seed in next month’s SLC Tournament in Corpus Christi.
