ST. MARY'S CITY, Md. -- Holding onto the No. 3 national ranking for the third consecutive week, the Christopher Newport women's soccer team will carry a 12-game unbeaten streak into Wednesday night's road trip to St. Mary's College of Maryland. The Capital Athletic Conference matchup will kick off at 7:00 pm in Maryland as the Captains (10-0-2, 3-0-0) travel to St. Mary's City for the first of two regular season matchups against the Seahawks.
The Seahawks are 2-9-0 overall and 0-3-0 in conference play. The Captains own a decided 9-2-0 advantage in the all-time series including a six-game winning streak heading into Wednesday's bout.
For fans unable to make the road trip with the team, live stats and a live video webcast will be presented by the St. Mary's department of athletics. Links can be found on the women's soccer schedule at CNUsports.com.
Prior to Wednesday's matchup, the national rankings were released by both the United Soccer Coaches and D3soccer.com. Christopher Newport is slotted in at No. 3 nationally in both, continuing their positioning at the highest ranking in program history. Messiah is the top-ranked team and Middlebury ranks second in both polls.
Christopher Newport has won all three conference games this season while outscoring opponents by a tally of 18-1 in those three games. With their last win, the Captains tied the program record for consecutive victories in conference play with 21 straight wins dating back to October 22, 2016. Since the start of the 2015 season, the Christopher Newport women's soccer team is unbeaten in 36 straight conference regular season games, going 35-0-1 in that stretch.
With the offensive outburst last week that saw the Captains score 13 goals in two games, the lineup behind junior scoring leader
Riley Cook showed off it's depth. Junior
Madison Cochran put together a nine-point week and hauled in CAC Offensive Player of the Week accolades to move up to second on the team with 15 points on 6 goals and 3 assists. Sophomore midfielder
Emily Talotta also has 15 points with 3 goals and 9 assists while rookie
Sarah Rhiel continues to facilitate the offense from the outside as well with nine points on 2 goals and 5 assists. In total, eleven different Captains have scored multiple goals in the first 12 games of the season.
Junior goalkeeper
Haley Eiser has started all 12 games for the Captains and owns a 0.26 goals-against average and a .921 save percentage. In two years as the starting goalkeeper, Eiser is 28-2-2 with a 0.52 career goals-against average and currently charts as the all-time leader in save percentage and GAA.
The Captains will face a St. Mary's squad that has dropped seven straight with just two goals scored in that stretch. The Seahawks have scored seven goals this year with three coming off the foot of leading scorer Kaitlyn Steigner, a freshman. Junior Emmey German has added two goals while underclassmen Maddie Schwarz and Megan Tazza have each tacked on one apiece.
Rookie Audra Haines has played the bulk of the time in goal for the home team with a 2.31 goals-against average and 46 saves for a .657 save percentage.
Christopher Newport will stay on the road for their next game, traveling to Salisbury University on Saturday, October 12 for a 2:00 pm kickoff.
