Winners of four of its last five matches the Fairfield University women's soccer team turns its attention to Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) play, travelling to Jersey City, N.J. on Wednesday for a 4 p.m. match with Saint Peter's University. It is the league opener for the Stags, who are 4-4-0 overall, while the Peacocks are 2-5-0 overall and 0-1-0 in conference play.
Fans not able to attend the game can watch on line (PPV) or follow livestats for free.
Fairfield and Saint Peter's are meeting for the 23rd time with the Stags going 21-0-1 in the all-time series and outscoring the Peacocks 85-7. The lone tie came in the 1995 MAAC tournament, 1-1, and the Stags advanced via penalty kicks. The Stags have allowed just two goals in the last 11 meetings with a 1-0 shutout, in overtime, when the teams met on Lessing Field last fall.
Rookie Brenna Brown (North Salem, N.Y.) scored her first collegiate goal in the Stags 1-0 win over Yale University on Lessing Field Sunday afternoon. The rookie's first-ever game winner snapped a six-game series losing streak for the Stags, who last beat the Bulldogs in 2008.
Kathleen Early (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) posted her first clean sheet of the year in the win on Sunday. She made five of her six saves in the second-half, with a strong wind in her face, including one with under a minute to play to preserve the victory. Early is fourth in the MAAC with a .806 save percentage and her 1.00 GAA is also fourth in the conference rankings.
Nikki Stanton (North Bend, Wash.) sent the long ball to the foot of Brown for her third assist of the year, tops on the team, and her five points is second on the roster. Two of her assists have come on game-winning goals for the Stags, both of which came on Sunday in home games. Stanton now has 11 career assists, five shy of moving into the top-10 list in program history.
For the first time this month Ashley Small (Melville, N.Y.) did not score a goal for the Stags. She had netted a goal in four consecutive games, with three being game-winning tallies. All told, Small has put the ball in the back of the net five times this season and leads the squad with 10 points. She is 86th in the nation, through games of September 22, in goals scored and goals per game.
The Stags have fared well historically in league openers, posting an impressive 17-2-2 mark in those games. Fairfield won its first 11 openers, including the very first MAAC game the team played in 1992, 4-1 over Saint Peter's. Under Jim O'Brien the Stags are 4-2-2 in league openers, and are 3-0-1 over the past four seasons.
Saint Peter's is led offensively by Ashley Drozd who has scored three of the team's eight goals, and has a team-best seven points. Greta Vogel has scored twice, while Nicole Tafrow has a goal and an assist on the year. Molly O'Halloran has played all 630 minutes in net for the Peacocks and has a.486 save percentage and a 2.71 GAA.
With the addition of Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University to the league, Fairfield will play a 10-game regular season conference schedule. All 11 teams advance to the MAAC Championship, October 31-November 4 at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Florida. The Stags earned a share of the 2012 MAAC Regular Season crown going 8-0-1 in league play last season.
