Nicholls at home to face top two soccer teams in SLC, Lamar and Texas A&M-Commerce

Nicholls lost 3-0 to McNeese State last Sunday but the Lady Colonels may have had one of their better-executed matches of the season.

The Lady Colonels finished with a 16-15 edge over McNeese in shots. Nicholls had eight shots in each half.

“The question is, can we take what we did on Sunday, can we build on that and continue to play that way and see how successful we are trying to possess against a much better team,” Nicholls coach Robert Podeyn said.

That better team is Lamar. The Lady Cardinals are 2-0 in the Southland Conference and the only team in the league sporting an overall winning record at 7-2-1. One of the wins was a 1-0 victory over then-17th ranked Xavier. Nicholls and Lamar meet at 7 p.m. Friday at the Thibodaux Regional Sports Complex.

Nicholls will follow that up with a 1 p.m. home contest Sunday against Texas A&M-Commerce, the other 2-0 team in the Southland. Commerce is 4-5-1 overall.

While Nicholls may have played better against McNeese it marks another defeat. Nicholls goes into the two home games 0-2 in the SLC and 1-10 overall.

“It’s kind of hard to stay positive when you are not winning. Right now, that’s our challenge,” said Podeyn.

As losses mount, Podeyn said, it’s natural that frustration might set in.

“I think we are moving in the right direction,” the Nicholls coach said. “I think we are getting closer, but sometimes these things are not a sprint, they are a marathon.

“Every rebuild is different. I’ve rebuilt four other programs. This is the slowest process of a rebuild that I’ve had. It’s also where I’ve seen more sustained success as far as growth, it’s just on a slower path.”

Lamar is a veteran. Of its three top scorers, two are graduate students and the other is a junior. The goalkeeper is also a graduate student.

“Lamar has a quality program. They have a senior, grad student-laden team. They are very experienced. They have solid coaching there. They are going to be very organized. They will be very dangerous,” Podeyn said.

The Lady Cardinals have scored 16 goals this season. Of the 16 goals, Cariel Ellis has four, with three each by Hollie Massey and Isela Ramirez. Ramirez is the junior in the group.

Goalkeeper Nicole Panis has been in the net for all but 13:44 minutes of the season. She has allowed five goals with 33 saves.

“They are an organized team,” Podeyn said. “They have good goalkeeping, good defense, and they are hard to break down and hard to beat.

“However, having said that, they haven’t really scored goals in bunches.”

Lamar has scored more than three goals only once, that being a 4-1 win over Houston Christian in its most recent outing.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been the kind of team that has made a lot of mental mistakes at the wrong times, and we’ll give up goals because of that. McNeese was a perfect example, where we made a couple of mental mistakes, gave up goals because of those in a game in which we were actually the better team,” said Podeyn.

Texas A&M-Commerce is a different sort of team than Lamar.

The Lions have scored 15 goals on the season, five by Hannah Bell.

While Lamar has one dominant goalkeeper, Texas A&M-Commerce have two who have split time evenly. Sophia Dean and Gillian McKenzie each have 23 saves. Dean has allowed 14 goals and McKenzie 11.

“They are a different kind of team. They have two very fast players that I think are sisters,” said Podeyn, referring to Mya and Nya Mitchell. “They typically will play a 4-4-2, so they are a very direct team in how they play. Because of that, you can shut them down.”

“I kind of feel like Commerce is a game where it’s a bit closer,” Podeyn continued. “Lamar is the best team in the conference. I think Commerce is a bit overrated when it comes to their team. I think they are a good team and good at what they do, which is being a direct team, playing into those two sisters that are very fast and going forward. I think the rest of the team is beatable

“Can we play our game and make that effective for us to do that? We’ll see.”

Commerce is a predictable team that is constantly going forward, according to Podeyn.

“They’re not trying to spread the field. If we can stay organized and keep our game and force them to chase, then I think we can get it behind them and get opportunities,” he said.

The Nicholls coach said he would like to see the team build confidence over the next two games and then prepare for the final portion of the season.

“If we can maybe create more opportunities and make better decisions in the final third and be more dangerous and still work on our possession, to me, that’s a win right there,” Podeyn said. “Because then we can use that to build off of the last six games of the season, we’re going to get results in those games.

“Not that we can’t get results in these two games, but I’m looking at these two games to build more momentum for that finish toward the end of the season.”