Week 6 - North Texas

RUSTON ââ'¬" The Louisiana Tech women's soccer team will try to bounce back from only its second loss of the season on Sunday when they face off against the three-time defending Conference USA regular season champions North Texas at 1 p.m. at the Lady Techster Soccer Complex.

LA Tech (8-2-2, 1-1 C-USA) has been very successful on its own pitch in league play. Since joining C-USA in 2013, the Lady Techsters are 15-6 in such games. They have already posted one conference win at home this season when they defeated UTSA in the league opener.

The Lady Techsters do need to rebound from the road loss to the Rice Owls. It was a great defensive display, limiting the Owls scoring chances inside the box. However, Rice was able to score on two unstoppable shots from outside the 18.

Sophomore goalkeeper Carlotta Cartelli got her fourth start of the season in goal and registered five saves, including a pair of great diving stops. She is 2-1-1 on the season while fellow teammate Courtney Tompkins has seven starts in net with a 5-1-1 mark.

It was no surprise to see North Texas (5-2-1, 1-0 C-USA) picked as the preseason favorite to repeat as the C-USA champion. Led by head coach John Hedlund who is in his 23rd season, has the Mean Green earning top-25 votes in the national rankings.

North Texas remained undefeated on the road this past Thursday when they went up to Huntington, West Virginia and shutout Marshall, 1-0, in its league opener.

It has been scoring by committee for the Mean Green with nine different players having netted at least one goal. They are led offensively by Berklee Peters who has five goals and one assist. Miranda Schoening and Brooke Bradley have split playing time in goal.

North Texas leads the all-time series over LA Tech, 4-1. The two squads have played in the regular season finale each of the last two years. Last season, the Mean Green ended up winning, 3-1, in Denton.

In 2015, the Lady Techsters pulled off a 1-0 shutout victory which qualified the team for the league tournament.

Admission is free to all home matches. For those unable to attend, the match will be streamed live on CUSA.TV ($). Fans can also follow @LATechSOC on Twitter for live in-game updates.