Scene Setter
    The North Dakota State women's soccer team returns to action with a pair of weekend matches against Western Illinois. The two teams will face each other at 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 19 and at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 21. Both matches will be played in the Dacotah Field Bubble.

2021 Spring Season Attendance Policy
    For matches played in the Dacotah Field Bubble during the 2021 spring season, fans will not be allowed due to space limitations from the Covid-19 Pandemic.

NDSU in Season Openers
    With a 3-2 loss to Kansas City on Friday, the Bison dropped to 16-10 all-time in season openers. Last year, the Bison beat St. Mary's 1-0 on August 23, winning the season opener for the second-straight year. The Bison are now 9-4-1 all-time in the Summit League opener. 

The Series with Western Illinois
    NDSU owns a 10-5-1 lead in the all-time series that dates back to a 3-3 double overtime tie on Sept. 3, 2004 in Macomb. The Bison are on a five-match winning streak in the series, the five-match winning streak the Bison have had in the series. NDSU won 2-1 on Oct. 20, 2019 in the last meeting. The Bison are 4-2 all-time against the Leathernecks in Fargo.

North Dakota State Notes

• The Bison split the opening weekend of league play with Kansas City. The Roos took a 3-2 decision on Friday, while the Bison bounced back with a 2-0 shutout on Sunday.
• Senior Brookelyn Dew scored the first goal in each match for the Bison, while freshman Olivia Lovick added the second goal in each match.
• Junior Aly Cole made her first career appearance in the net in the series finale, pitching a shutout against the Roos while adding three saves.

 
About Western Illinois

• The Leathernecks opened the season with a pair of losses against defending Summit League Champion Denver. Denver won the opener 2-0 before pitching another shutout on Sunday, 4-0.
• Dating back to last season, the Leathernecks have been shutout in seven of their last eight matches. During that eight-match losing streak, the lone goal came in a 2-1 loss against NDSU.
• Isabel Navas Rodriguez ranks third in the nation with 9.0 saves per match, while the Leathernecks rank fourth in the nation as a team with 9.0 saves per match.

25 Years of NDSU Soccer
    The 2019 season marked the 25th season of soccer at NDSU. In the first 25 years of NDSU soccer, the Bison owned a 248-184-31 (.569) all-time record, including a 131-43-8 (.742) mark in home matches. In six seasons at Dacotah Field, the Bison are 35-17-3 (.664). Pete Cuadrado is the all-time leader in wins with 93 in nine seasons as head coach from 2003-11. The Bison have had a winning record in 18 of the 25 seasons played. 

NDSU Picked Seventh in Summit League Preseason Poll
    The North Dakota State women's soccer team is picked to finish seventh in the Summit League Women's Soccer Preseason Poll, announced Tuesday, Jan. 26 by the league office.
    NDSU finished fifth in the standings last season, missing the conference tournament for the first time in 10 years. The Bison received 25 points in the poll, sitting three points ahead of Omaha and four points behind North Dakota. Defending league champion Denver was picked to repeat with seven first place votes and 63 points, while South Dakota State was picked second with 58 points and the remaining two first place votes. Oral Roberts (45 points), South Dakota (41) and Kansas City (32) rounded out the top five.
    The top four regular-season finishers will qualify for The Summit League Women's Soccer Championship, which will be played in Omaha April 15-17. 

Last Time Out
    The North Dakota State soccer team scored a goal in each half on Sunday, while the defense pitched a shutout in a 2-0 win over Kansas City at the Dacotah Field Bubble. NDSU improved to 4-1-2 all-time against the Roos. NDSU improved to 1-1 on the year, while the Roos dropped to 1-2. The win improved NDSU to 10-4-2 all-time on Sunday's under head coach Mike Regan. 
    Brookelyn Dew scored first for the Bison for the second time this year, with her sixth career goal coming in the 28th minute. Kelsey Kallio and Danielle Algera had the assist on the play, the first for Kallio and the fifth of Algera's career. In the 83rd minute, Olivia Lovick scored for the second time this weekend, taking a pass from Jess Hanley, who recorded her first career assist.
    Kallio led the Bison with three shots on goal, while Alicia Nead, Dew, Marian Taiwo and Lovick each had one. Aly Cole made her collegiate debut in the net, as the junior recorded three saves. 
    NDSU had a 13-11 advantage in shots. 

Bison Women's Soccer Earns United Soccer Coaches Team Academic Award
    The North Dakota State University women's soccer team earned the United Soccer Coaches Team Academic Award for exemplary performance in the classroom during the 2019-20 academic year. 
    The Bison posted a 3.63 team GPA for 2019-20, extending an impressive run of earning the Team Academic Award for the 18th time in the past 19 years. The 2019-20 school year was the 20th time the Bison have won the award since it was introduced in 1996.
    To qualify for the award, a team must have a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher for the entire academic year.

Strand, Douglass Named to Summit League "Players to Watch" List
    Bison sophomores McKenna Strand and Lavin Douglass were named to the "Players to Watch" list by the league coaches. Both players were selected to the Summit League All-Freshman Team last season. Strand appeared in 17 matches, including seven starts. Douglass started 16 of the 18 matches she played in, while scoring a goal against South Dakota.

Last Time Against Western Illinois
    The North Dakota State soccer team scored a pair of goals in the second half Oct. 20, 2019, as the Bison beat Western Illinois 2-1 at Dacotah Field. NDSU moved to 7-5-3 overall and 2-1-2 in the Summit League with the victory, while Western Illinois dropped to 6-9-1 overall and 2-4 in league play.
    Amy Andrews started the scoring for the Leathernecks, as she recorded her sixth goal of the season off an assist from Zoe Clarke in the 32nd minute. Early in the second half, Laura Powell scored her first goal of the season, and second of her career, in the 48th minute off an assist from Elyse Huber. It was the second assist of the season for Huber, the leader scorer for the Bison. In the 63rd minute, Brookelyn Dew found Danielle Algera for her first goal of the season, and second of her career, to give the Bison the victory. It was the third career assist for Dew and the second of the season for the junior.
    Huber led the Bison with five shots, while Paige Goaley added three. Powell and Algera each had a pair of shots, while Goaley and Algera led the Bison with two shots on goal apiece. Monica Polgar recorded six saves in 90 minutes in the net.
    Polgar moved into eighth place on the single-season saves list with her 91st of the season. Huber moved into a tie for seventh in school history with her 34th shot on goal this season.
    The Leathernecks and Bison each had 16 shots, while each team had seven shots on goal.

Head Coach Mike Regan
    Mike Regan begins his third season at the head coach of the Bison. An assistant coach for teams in the Missouri Valley and Big Ten Conferences over the previous six seasons before coming to NDSU, Regan was named head women's soccer coach at North Dakota State on Jan. 19, 2018.
    Regan came to NDSU after two seasons as a Big Ten assistant coach at Indiana University in Bloomington. Prior to Indiana, he was an assistant coach at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, for four seasons where he was part of the 2015 Missouri Valley Conference championship team and the 2015 MVC Coaching Staff of the Year. Drake made four consecutive MVC tournament appearances.
    Before joining Drake, Regan was the head coach for the North Iowa Area Community College men's soccer team for five seasons, where he posted an impressive record of 74-17-6 and was named the NJCAA/ICCAC Men's Soccer Coach of the Year three times.
    Regan also has extensive coaching experience at the youth level. He is currently a staff coach with the U.S. Youth Soccer Region II Girls Olympic Development Program and served as the head coach of the Iowa ODP '98 age group for three years. Regan holds a National 'A' Coaching License from the United States Soccer Federation.
    Regan earned a bachelor's degree from Waldorf College in 2009 and a master's degree from California University of Pennsylvania in 2011.

On the Horizon
    NDSU will be back in the Dacotah Field Bubble for the third-straight weekend on Feb. 26 & 28 against Omaha. The two teams will square off at 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 26 and at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 28.