Oct. 22, 2003

Mizzou Hosts Final Home Series
The Mizzou soccer hits the road to play its last three games of the 2003 regular season. Starting with a jaunt through the Lone Star State, the Tigers face Baylor in Waco, on Friday at 7:00 p.m., before taking on Texas Tech in Lubbock, on Sunday at 11:00 a.m.

The Tigers head to Ames, Iowa, for their final regular season game against Iowa State on Fri., Oct. 31 at 5:00 p.m.

Scouting Baylor
Baylor is 6-8-1 on the year owning a 1-5-1 Big 12 Conference record to tie the Tigers' league record. Owning a 7-8-1 non-conference mark, Mizzou edges the Bears as the eighth ranked team in the conference.

Facing league opponents, Baylor picked up its only victory over Nebraska with a 2-1 win and earned its tie against Oklahoma 1-1. The Bears have only scored three goals during league action falling to Kansas (1-0), Oklahoma State (3-0), Colorado (2-0), Texas (4-0) and Texas A&M (3-0) in shutouts.

Baylor owns the MU-BU series record 5-4. Edging the rivalry however, Missouri has won the last two matches defeating the Bears 4-3 in 2002 and 5-2 in 2001.

Scouting Texas Tech
The Red Raiders are 2-11-1 in 2003 owning a 1-6-0 Big 12 record. Texas Tech won its first Big 12 victory of the year taking down Kansas 3-2.

Missouri leads the MU-TT series 5-3, including the three consecutive outings.

Eying the Tigers
Backed by a tremendous 5-4 victory over #4 Texas A&M, Missouri looks to carry its momentum on the road. The Tigers own a 7-8-1 season record, with a 1-5-1 Big 12 Conference mark. Mizzou earned its first league win over the Aggies and came-back to tie then #21 ranked Oklahoma State with a second-half goal.

Battling a range of injuries that have sidelined six of Mizzou's starters at various points during the season, the Tigers were still able to keep a close match with #24 Oklahoma. Missouri led 1-0 for the majority of the game before giving up the game-tying goal late in the second period. The Tigers fell to the Sooners on a controversial goal scored in overtime.

The Mizzou upswing faltered however as ill fortune struck the Tigers against KU and Texas. In a 2-0 loss to Kansas, two of Missouri's starters were sidelined by injury while the team lost an additional player to a red card. Mizzou faced the Longhorn without several of its key athletes, but still managed to give them a rough game before taking a 2-1 loss.

Tiger Tidbits
* The Tigers are 6-3-1 on their home field this season. Mizzou opened 2003 with a five-game home win streak--its longest opening streak in history-before falling to Oklahoma.

* Missouri opened the year with a 4-0 win streak marking just the second time in program history the Tigers have gone undefeated during its season introduction - Mizzou opened the 2000 season with five consecutive victories before taking a loss.

* During the 2003 season, Texas A&M has only allowed 10 opponent goals in 15 games. Falling to Missouri, the Aggies gave up 50 percent of their season goals against in the Tigers' 5-4 victory.

* Likewise, the Tigers scored two goals against Colorado to own 29 percent of the goals scored against the Buffaloes this season. In 15 contests, CU has given up just seven goals while recording nine shutouts.

* Including #4 Texas A&M, Missouri has faced eight opponents ranked in the top-25 at the time of play, including seven of their last eight consecutive games. In addition, the Tigers have three additional teams on their schedule toted in the top-25 at sometime during the season including:
#14 Purdue -- NSCAA (10-13-03)-- MU defeated PU 2-1
#19 Kansas -- SoccerBuzz (9-22-03) -- KU defeated MU 2-0
#7 Texas -- NSCAA (9-15-03)-- UT defeated MU 2-1

Missouri in the Big 12
* The Tiger goalkeeping staff is ranked fourth in the league making 80 saves on the year to average 5.00 saves per game.

* Although Mizzou is only ranked eighth in goals scored (26) in 2003, Tiger playmakers have combined for 29 assists to average 1.81 assists per game for a sixth-place ranking.

* Missouri has dished out 14 of its season assists against conference opponents to average 2.00 assists per game during league play to rank third overall.

--For a complete version of Missouri Soccer Notes, please select the Weekly Release icon from the Mizzou Soccer main page to view the PDF file.