LAKE CHARLES, La. – Oral Roberts defeated Sam Houston State 2-0 in the opening match of the Southland Conference Soccer Tournament at Cowgirl Field in Lake Charles, La., on the campus of McNeese State. The Golden Eagles will next take on No. 1 seed Stephen F. Austin tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. in the first semifinal match of the day.

Oral Roberts struck for the first goal of the match in the 32nd minute when junior midfielder Jennifer Abernathy turned on an unassisted loose ball in the box for the early 1-0 lead. It was Abernathy’s fourth goal on the year.

ORU doubled its lead in the 60th minute when freshman midfielder Ashley Martin took an assist from fellow freshman Kayla Keller. The goal was Martin’s fourth and Keller’s fourth assist on the season.

For the match, Sam Houston took seven shots compared to Oral Roberts’ six but the Golden Eagles managed five of their shots on goal. In the net, ORU’s Helen Erb and Sam Houston’s Kylie Hambleton each registered three saves.

Oral Roberts improves its season record to 12-6-2 while the Bearkats finished the year 7-11-1.

Tomorrow’s semifinal match between ORU and SFA will be streamed live on the Southland Digital Network and live stats will be available on www.southland.org. The winner will advance to Sunday’s championship at 1 p.m.

Postgame Quotes:

Oral Roberts Quotes
Head coach Ryan Bush
On team’s effort…
“I thought our effort was great, we were sound defensively. We wanted to get a clean sheet in the back. I thought we thought we took care of things in the attacking-third and got players in the dangerous part of the field. I thought the girls played really hard tonight.”

On goal in first 15 minutes of second half …
“We told the girls for the first 15 minutes of the second half our attitude is we are going to press and press and press, and we pressed and we got the goal that changes the game. Sometimes 2-0 can be a dangerous lead unless you get it at the right part of the game, in which we did. I felt like we suffocated them a little bit, took control of the game and got the victory.”

On facing Stephen F. Austin tomorrow…
“Stephen F. Austin is a good team; we’ve played and seen them before. We played a very, very tough non-conference schedule, so we’ve played plenty of teams of that caliber. We’ve beat teams of that caliber and competed at that level, so we’ll be ready…with our senior leadership and intensity we’ll be ready to go come game time.”

Junior midfielder Jennifer Abernathy
On team’s performance…
“All around I think we had a pretty good game, I know there are couple of things we need to work on for tomorrow’s game…tomorrow is our most important game. We were organized and did better finishing today.”

On goal and getting out to an early lead…
 “I think it’s really important. All season we’ve struggled to get that first goal and have had to fight until the very last second. It was really important to get that early goal.”

Freshman midfielder Ashley Martin
On goal in the second half…
“Whenever you score a second goal you get more confidence and get stronger in the back. It means if they get one, you are still okay because you are still up one, but it doesn’t mean you stop fighting. We just kept going at it.”

On facing Stephen F. Austin…
“We are going to relax tonight and not think about the past because we are a whole new team and they’re probably going to be a whole new team. We are going into it confident in that we are going to win and finish all of our opportunities.”

Sam Houston State Quotes

Head coach Tom Brown
On today’s match…
“I thought early on we created some good chances.  We were hit or miss as far was being able to possess the ball. I thought Oral Roberts did a good job of putting pressure on our back and getting into space. Over the 90 minutes, I just didn’t think we had that attacking mentality. The last 10-15 minutes, we were pushing the ball forward I thought some of our young players did a very good job of knocking it around and trying to get into that space.”