VICKSBURG, Miss.—Coming off a much-needed long break, the Northwestern State soccer team concludes its string of five consecutive matches on the road to begin the regular season by visiting Alcorn State.
Kickoff is at 6 p.m. this evening at Key City Park. Fans can watch the game on the Alcorn State athletics YouTube channel.
During the layoff, NSU (0-4) had a chance to work on what it needed to and work on correcting weaknesses before playing the rest of the non-conference schedule before going into Southland Conference play.
“This break allowed us to work on some things we really needed to work on and get some much-needed training under our belt and get a few players healthy and healed up,” fourth-year Demons’ coach Ian Brophy said. “It’s been nice to prioritize training, and we got a lot done and also rest and recovered to get ready for this next phase.”
In the last game, the Demons found the back of the net for the first time this season when Iesha Rollins scored on a penalty kick in the second half in the loss at UL Lafayette.
In this one, Rollins faces her former team, where she was the leading scorer for Alcorn State (1-3) last season with six goals coming on a pair of hat tricks against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Alabama State.
She earned first team All-SWAC honors last season for the Braves.
“It’s a different game for me because that is my old team,” Rollins said. “A lot of them I am still good friends with, but once we’re on the field, it’s war. I feel a lot of passion for this game, and I want to show them and show the rest of my team what we can do against a good team.”
The teams played last season in Natchitoches with the Demons taking a 3-1 victory against the Braves.
Even in defeat last game, the defense felt it played well overall, surrendering just 12 shot attempts by the Ragin’ Cajuns, tied for the second fewest ULL has attempted in a game this season.
“The defense played pretty well as a unit last game,” defender Bonnie Miller said. “We played well moving the ball around and getting chances when we could. But I think this break is a good re-set for the team and get us ready for these two games this week.”
Alcorn State is led by Grace Ambrose, who is in the top 20 in goals scored this season with four, three of them coming in a high-scoring 7-4 victory over Nicholls.
“We know they have some big threats,” Brophy said. “It will definitely be an interesting matchup. We know what Grace (Ambrose) brings to the table. She is a very good player and tough in the 1-on-1s, but they have a really good team built around her and they play really good soccer so it’s going to be a very tough match. They played Mississippi State really well and are starting to put some things together and that will be really tough for us.”
The Demons finally play in front of the home crowd when they host Louisiana Tech on Sunday at 1, the first of back-to-back home games before traveling to Grambling on Sept. 17 to round out the non-conference slate.