Southeast soccer team begins quest for OVC tournament title

As the regular season has come to a close and the top-seeded Southeast Missouri State soccer team prepares for the Ohio Valley Conference tournament that begins today, the message from coach Heather Nelson has been altered to fit to the heightened importance of each game.

"When we get to this time of year we spend a little bit more time focusing on our history and our tradition of our program, and the experience that we bring to these situations," Nelson said. "That was certainly a major focus leading into the SIUE game. I have seniors in this class that have all been here before, and you always hope that that provides a bit of an edge, and I think it did. I think our response when SIUE tied up the game was still a very confident, professional, 'just get after it' [mindset]."

The Redhawks claimed a share of the OVC regular-season title with its 2-1 win over SIU Edwardsville on Friday for the team's fifth regular season conference championship and could add a third conference tournament title and an NCAA tournament berth to the tradition-rich program this weekend.

Southeast received a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed in the tournament, which will be held today, Friday and Sunday at Houck Stadium.

The Redhawks will face the winner of tonight's 7 p.m. game between No. 4 UT-Martin and No. 5 Jacksonville State at 7 p.m. Friday.

No. 2 SIUE will play the winner between third-seeded Murray State and sixth-seeded Morehead State at 4 p.m. Friday. The Racers and Eagles face off at 4 p.m. today.

Southeast's (11-5, 8-2 OVC) only conference losses were a 2-1 loss to UT-Martin on Oct. 3, and a 1-0 overtime loss to Austin Peay, which did not make the six-team tournament.

Nelson said that she plans for her players to stay indoors and out of the cold tonight and will watch the first round games on the OVC Digital Network while she and her coaching staff watch the games at the stadium.

Southeast last hosted the conference tournament after winning the OVC championship in 2011.

"I think it's wonderful for us," Nelson said. "We should have the biggest fan base. ... We certainly want to play for ourselves and for our team, but it's always great to play for the university, for the whole Southeast [Missouri] region, and having that little bit of extra pressure -- I think with this particular group it sharpens us, which is not a bad thing. It just puts us at a peak performance."

The Redhawks' two OVC tournament titles came in 2006 and 2007. They haven't reached the championship game since.

Southeast was knocked out of the tournament in the first round last year in a 1-0 loss to Austin Peay, but sophomore defender Christina Rohde has noticed the team's attitude is different heading into the tournament this year.

"I think just the will to like put our bodies on the line and play for each other -- I feel like that feeling is going throughout the team a lot more," Rohde said.

The Redhawks take a six-game winning streak into Friday's game.

"Excited is an understatement, I think," senior Torey Byrd said. "I think we're just trying to have fun, but focus. We know what we have to do. We've definitely never given up during the whole season, that's for sure. We've had our ups and downs, but we somehow seem to pull it out, so we're hoping the same thing will happen this weekend."

Nelson is optimistic that any of her players who have been "banged up" with injuries will be available by Friday, including sophomore forward and the team's leader in goals and assists Natasha Minor, who was on crutches following the win over SIUE.

"We're going to make sure that she's ready to go," Nelson said.

Nelson said that her team has been "business as usual" this week.

"That's probably been one of the coolest things about them all year," Nelson said. "They're so responsible with their own personal work ethic and recovery and nutrition, and then anything we ask them to do, it's just done. And it's probably not just done to an OK level. If there's a chance to excel more than what we ask them to do, then they're the type of student-athletes where they're just going to do it."

Rohde agreed that she and her teammates' desire to be conference champions has helped them buy in to what their coaches had asked of them from the beginning of the season.

"We've all kind of had that end goal in mind of winning conference," Rohde said. "Not only winning conference, but also winning the tournament, which is what we need to do this weekend.