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CHARLESTON, S.C. – The Citadel will be eyeing its first win in Southern Conference play this season as the Bulldogs welcome Mercer to WLI Field on Friday afternoon at 3 p.m.
As with all of The Citadel's home matches this spring, Friday's contest will be broadcast live on ESPN+ from WLI Field. Friday's match will be the Bulldogs' first of the spring as part of its Match Ball Sponsors program, with an anonymous member of The Citadel's Class of 1986 offering their support to the program.
The Bulldogs (6-5-2, 0-2 SoCon) will be seeking to bounce back from a pair of narrow defeats last weekend on the road at Wofford and Furman. On Friday against the Terriers, the two sides battled to a scoreless draw at halftime before Wofford tallied two second-half goals, and against the Paladins on Sunday, Furman grabbed an early lead on a goal in the seventh minute and was able to hold off a comeback attempt by The Citadel down the stretch.
Offensively, The Citadel continues to be led by
Logan Dix, whose nine goals in 2020-21 rank sixth in the country while her 20 points are seventh among all Division I players.
Maria Contreras and
Ellie Burgess have each netted a pair of goals for the Bulldogs and four others have scored one apiece;
Suzuka Yosue, despite not scoring, ranks second on the squad with five points, all of which have come off assists.
On the defensive side, The Citadel split its goalkeepers last week, with
Jess Newton playing the full match against Wofford and
Brie Sikes getting all 90 minutes at Furman. Newton made four saves against the Terriers, and Sikes, drawing her first start of the spring, produced six stops against Furman.
Between Newton and Sikes, the pair have produced a goals against average of just 0.96 across 1,213 minutes this season, allowing only 13 goals in The Citadel's 13 matches thus far.
Mercer enters Friday's match with a 4-7-1 overall record and a 1-1 mark in SoCon action. Each of the Bears' last three matches have gone into overtime and ended on a golden goal; twice Mercer has been upended by Troy and Furman, but Ally Fordham's match-winner in the 97th minute on Sunday gave the Bears a 2-1 win over Wofford.
Fordham is the team's leading goalscorer with six on the year, but Aliah Kitchens holds a slight edge as the team's leader in total points, scoring five goals with four assists for a total of 14. Kendall Cook (4), Ciara Whitely (2) and Kylie Buchanan (2) have also each scored multiple goals for the Bears.
In goal, Jordyn Ebert has drawn the lion's share of minutes, playing 995 of a possible 1,130 in goal for Mercer in 2020-21. Ebert has made 53 saves and surrendered 15 goals for a GAA of 1.36 while grabbing a pair of solo shutouts.
Prior to this season, The Citadel had never earned a positive result against Mercer in seven all-time meetings since 2014. In two bouts treated as non-conference battles in the fall, however, the Bulldogs came away with positive results in both, battling to a 1-1 draw in Charleston on Sept. 17 before defeating the Bears, 3-2, in Macon on Oct. 9 for the program's first-ever win in the series.
In its history as a SoCon member, The Citadel has just four instances of earning positive results in three consecutive meetings against a conference foe and has not done so since 2012, when the Bulldogs capped a run of four unbeaten matches against Appalachian State (2009-12) and three unbeaten against Wofford (2010-12).
Following Friday's match, The Citadel will have a week off before returning to WLI Field for a pair of matches next weekend, taking on VMI (Friday at 3 p.m.) and UNCG (Sunday at 11 a.m.) in a pair of SoCon battles. Against VMI, the Bulldogs will be seeking their third straight victory over their archrival, and on Sunday The Citadel will be aiming for its first-ever win over UNCG in the 20th meeting between the two sides.
