Aug. 28, 2005

Box Score

Memphis, Tenn. - Asuka Kubota scored two goals and recorded two assists while fellow Japan native Shoko Mikami also scored two goals and had one assist to lead the Memphis women's soccer team to a season-opening 7-0 win over Tennessee Tech at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex on Sunday afternoon. Seven different players recorded assists in the game. The seven-goal differential is the largest margin of victory for Memphis since the 1999 season and the seven goals scored are also the most scored since a 9-0 win over Rhodes that opened the 1999 season.

Freshman Kylie Hayes also scored a goal and had an assist while redshirt junior Nicky McLeod, who made her first appearance since the 2003 season, also had a goal and an assist.

Memphis began it offensive explosion just 8:05 into the game when Mikami, a junior who led the nation in scoring two years ago while playing at Division II Christian Brothers University, scored on a free kick from about 40 yards out the skidded off the hands of Tech goalkeeper Loretta McNamee.

Just over two minutes later at 10:17, Hayes, a prolific goal scorer in her prep career in Ohio, scored her first collegiate goal off assists from McLeod and fellow freshman Kate Murphy. The play began when Murphy served a ball from the left side of the field across the field to McLeod on the right flank. McLeod then put a pass into the box for Hayes, who touched it once and beat McNamee from a few yards out.

The Tigers added one more goal before halftime at the 37:39 mark when Kubota sent in a cross from the right flank to sophomore Caroline Barrett, who gathered the ball just inside the left post and beat McNamee to the lower right of the goal for a 3-0 Tiger lead.

Less than five minutes into the second half, Mikami struck again, when she took a pass from Hayes from the right side and beat new keeper Lisa Wourms. Memphis goalkeeper Isabel Briones was also credited with an assist on the play, as she had punted the ball to Hayes beyond midfield. The goal by Mikami surpassed her goal total from all of last season.

At the 67:20 mark, Kubota passed the ball from the left side to Mikami atop the box, who shoveled it over to McLeod on the right side, where she dribbled into the box and beat Wourms to the bottom left for her first goal of the year. Kubota, an NAIA All-American last year, then scored her two goals at the 70:29 and 88:45 marks, respectively. She was assisted on the first goal by freshman Sarah MacGregor, who had just entered the game prior to a corner kick that began the play that the goal was scored on. Her final goal came on a breakaway in which she beat the keeper one-on-one.

"This was certainly a nice way to start the season and we are pleased with the result," said Memphis coach Brooks Monaghan. "We still have some things we need to work on and we will in time. But is certainly nice to begin the season with a win."

This is the second straight year that the Tigers have opened the season with a win and is also the second straight in which it was in a shutout, as the Tigers shut out Alabama A&M 4-0 in last year's opener. Ironically, it is not the largest margin of victory ever on opening day, as the aforementioned game against Rhodes on September 1, 1999 was the largest margin of victory, both on an opening day and tied for the largest margin overall.

Briones made four saves to record the shutout in goal for the Tigers. Memphis played 22 of the 26 active players on the roster. The Tigers outshot the Golden Eagles 21-7, though no Tiger individual had more than four shots. Memphis also had 12 shots on goal to TTU's four.

Memphis will return to action next Friday when the Tigers take on Samford in the opening game of the Samford Bulldog Soccer Classic in Birmingham, Ala. at 7:00 p.m. The next home game for the Tigers is next Wednesday, September 7 against UT-Martin at 7:00 p.m.