For the first time in the program’s 27 year history, the Tulsa women’s soccer team is nationally ranked. In the Top Drawer Soccer poll, the women rank No. 19 nationally.
In their first game as a ranked team, the Golden Hurricane traveled to Norman, OK to face the Sooners. The game started out rough for Tulsa, as Oklahoma was on the board within the first seven minutes of the game as they scored off of a free kick.
Tulsa didn’t go away, however, and got a goal from Christina Holmes at the half an hour mark to level the score at 1–1, which it remained until halftime.
In the second half, Oklahoma retook the lead at 2–1 in the 60th minute, and held on to get the victory.
The Sooners have historically been a difficult team to play for Tulsa. Since the teams met for the first time in 1997, Oklahoma has won seven of the nine games.
The loss ended some record setting streaks for the Golden Hurricane, the most obvious of which being their unbeaten streak to start the season. 8–0 is their best start for a season in Tulsa history. During that eight game win streak, Tulsa also set their record for most consecutive shutout victories, at six.
The Golden Hurricane also ranked very well nationally in terms of statistics heading into the game against Oklahoma. Tulsa was one of the last three teams to have an unbeaten record, along with Washington State and Rutgers. Some top ten statistical rankings for Tulsa included third in shutout percentage, fourth in goals-against average, and sixth in saves percentage.
Tulsa played their final non-conference game of the season against ORU on Sunday night, but the game was too late for print.
Next week the Golden Hurricane start conference play in a home game against Memphis at 7:00 on Thursday night.
