No. 14 Women’s Soccer Ready for First Place Showdown
         EDWARDSVILLE, ILL. - The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville women’s soccer team meets Northern Kentucky on Friday night in a battle for first place in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
         The 14th-ranked Cougars are 12-3 overall and 8-1 in league play. The Norse enter the contest with an 11-2 mark and 8-1 in the GLVC.
         “We have a job to do against the giants in our conference,” said SIUE women’s soccer coach Lynda Bowers. “NKU is one of those giants. They are going to be good.”
         The two teams met last regular season at Korte Stadium with the Cougars winning 2-0, handing Northern Kentucky their first loss in 45 GLVC regular season games.
         After the matchup with NKU, the Cougars visit Bellarmine to face the Knights.
         SIUE defeated Lewis in overtime, before having its school-record tying 10-game winning streak snapped against UW-Parkside over the weekend.
         The loss to the Rangers was the first GLVC regular season home loss for SIUE since Oct. 17, 2003.
         In the victory over the Flyers Lindsey Kampwerth (Highland) netted the game-winning goal.
         “Lindsey is the definition of grit,” said Bowers. “She plays with a lot of heart and guts. I was really proud of her in the way she muscled her way to that goal.”
         Kristine Armstrong (St. Peter’s) scored her team-leading 10th goal of the season against Lewis. Armstrong leads the team with 21 points.
         “She has consistently been a good scorer for us,” said Bowers. “She reads the game really well and has really good vision. She has a nose for the goal.”
         Freshman goalkeeper Kaci Backs (Greenville) has a 0.67 goals against average with five shutouts this season.
                  -siue cougars-