EVANSVILLE, Ind. - After a two-game split during the exhibition portion of the Purple Aces' schedule, the University of Evansville women's soccer team begins its regular season campaign against SEMO on Thursday night in Cape Girardeau, Mo. at 6:30 p.m..

"We're excited to get back on the road and try to compete and that's the biggest thing," said Aces head women's soccer coach Krista McKendree. "Without having classes still we're all focused on soccer so we want to try and get some good results here this opening weekend out of our way and to calm the nerves and to get some excitement going, I think, is key."

The Aces opened the preseason with a 2-0 loss on the road at SIUE on August 8 before grabbing a 1-0 triumph over Eastern Illinois on Sunday at Arad McCutchan Stadium.

Evansville and SEMO met in each side's regular season-opener a season ago as the Redhawks got the best of the Aces, 2-0, in Evansville. SEMO leads the all-time series 5-3-4 as UE is looking for its first win over the Redhawks since a 1-0 victory on September 17, 2014.

In season-openers, the Aces have lost their last three with the last season-opening win for UE coming in a 3-0 win over Austin Peay in 2014.

This season's Evansville squad features a balanced mix of 10 upperclassmen and 14 underclassmen. Of those 14 underclassmen, nine of them are freshman experiencing their first season of collegiate soccer.

"I think we're in a really good position. The first game was a little bit of a shock to (the freshman) just coming out and playing for the first time," said freshman Emily Wolak on how the newcomers have adjusted through the two exhibition matches. "We have so many incoming freshman on the team so its always difficult to have the new people mesh with returners, but I think we've done pretty well with that. We're excited for our first game."

"We're excited. We've got a lot of young talent that has promise, we just have to go through some growing pains of just learning how to play with each other and get everybody up to speed tactically with what we are trying to do offensively and defensively," said McKendree. "We've got some very nice players. A lot of our returners have come back fit and ready to go, so we're excited to get started."

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