Lady Colonels seek rare conference win when they host McNeese in SLC home opener

The Nicholls soccer team has a chance to be near full strength when it hosts McNeese State in the Lady Colonels’ Southland Conference home opener at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Thibodaux Regional Sports Complex.

COVID has hit the soccer team hard over the past couple of weeks.

“For a while, we were down both captains and three other starters and another kid off the bench,” Nicholls coach Robert Podeyn pointed out.

The Lady Colonels are coming off a 5-0 loss at Houston Christian University and are 1-9 on the season. HCU scored a pair of goals in a five-minute span in the first half before eventually pulling away for the five-goal margin.

“We were in one formation for the first 25 minutes of the game. It worked in that it kept numbers behind the ball, but unfortunately, the other team was coming in and applying a bit too much pressure,” Podeyn said. “We were having trouble kind of picking up our marks.

“At that point, we had a water break. We ended up switching formations. You could see it kind of balance out. For the rest of the first half, they kind of settled down. The second half, we actually had some chances getting in, but then we made one mistake.”

The Nicholls coach went on to describe the mistake.

“Defensively, they got a third goal, and you could kind of see our heads sink a little bit. They got a penalty kick, and again, we lost a mark on top of the 18 (yard box that serves as a restraining line for attacking players). So, a game that was a lot closer than the score seemed, ended up 5-0. It was probably more of a two-goal game,” Podeyn explained.

Despite the loss, Podeyn said his team learned a lot from the HCU encounter.

“I think we learned that the one formation we started out with, the girls were excited, and they wanted to try it. I think we learned that it’s not going to work,” he said. “I think they are like, ‘OK, we’ve got to focus this way, and that’s what we’re going to do.’ I think that’s something we learned. We need to focus on that.

“Other things we kind of learned, maybe we’ve got to be playing quicker. We’ve got to be a bit more aggressive. Defensively, we’ve got a little more work to do as far defending and marking, and that kind of thing.”

The HCU game marked the return from COVID protocol for several of the Lady Colonels.

“You could see they weren’t really up to what they normally play and their expectations for the game, but they still went out and worked really hard and did their best.”

In the week leading up to the McNeese game, two freshmen, Nevaeh Garris and Hannah Rice, were in the midst of their return-to-play protocol. Booke Cox, who suffered an ankle injury in the loss to HCU, was recovering from an upper repertory infection.

Nicholls will be taking on a 3-4-2 McNeese team coming off a 1-1 tie at home Friday against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the Cowgirls’ SLC opener. The Lady Colonels will be seeking their first conference win since a 2-0 win over Stephen F. Austin on Oct. 14, 2018.

“McNeese was a team last year we felt like we matched up well against,” Podeyn said. “Last year was a strange first game we played here. We were battling them well in the first half and had some chances then we had the strangest own goal I’ve ever seen, and that just kind of sunk us.

“The defender passed the ball back to the goalkeeper. They didn’t look at each other. The goalkeeper went away from the goal, which is what the goalkeeper is supposed to do. The defender didn’t look and literally passed it into the goal. It was just one of those things. It just kind of crushed the team.”

In the second match a year ago in Lake Charles, Nicholls led 1-0 and was tied 1-1 at the half before eventually losing.

“We ended up losing the game 3-1 and last year’s team wasn’t as good as this year’s team. I don’t think McNeese is a better team this year than they were last year. I feel like we are a better team. The numbers don’t really translate but I think we are a better team this year. We definitely have better players.”

Avoiding miscues, Podeyn said, will be the key to Sunday’s game against McNeese.

“If we can minimize those mistakes, I think we will put ourselves in position to win our first conference game in four or five years.”