September 14, 2005
Coming off a 3-0 shutout at home against East Carolina, the No. 14 Texas A&M soccer team will travel to Knoxville, Tenn. to take on the Washington Huskies Friday at 4:30 p.m. (CDT), in the opening round of the First Tennessee Classic.
The Aggies are 2-0 in previous meetings with the Huskies, a 2-1 overtime win in College Station during 2002 and a 1-0 win in Seattle in 2001.
A&M enters Friday's match 3-1-1, behind the scoring attacks of sophomores Ashlee Pistorius who's netted five goals thus far and Melissa Garey who's tallied four. With three shutouts under her belt this season, the Aggies are secure in the sound defense of senior goalkeeper Kati Jo Spisak who's totting a 0.38 goals against average.
"We are looking forward to playing against such great competition this weekend," commented A&M head coach G. Guerrieri. "This tournament features three other nationally powerful programs and will surely provide us with monumental challenges on the field. I am very confident that these games will help prepare us for a difficult conference road schedule (which begins the next weekend)."
All four teams competing in this weekend's First Tennessee Classic made appearances in the NCAA Tournament in 2005. The Huskies finished the '04-'05 season with a trip to the Elite Eight, while tournament host, Tennessee advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.
Concluding the tournament's first day of games will be a match between the Lady Vols and the Cardinal, who've made numerous Final Four appearances. Game time is set for 7 p.m. (CDT).
You can access live stats for the A&M game by logging on to AggieAthletics.com.