Bulls travel to Texas in search of first road victory

 Though the USF women’s soccer team finished its regular season play at home undefeated against Rutgers, the Bulls are still winless on the road as they travel to Dallas searching for their first road win tonight against SMU. Since the Bulls are 0-4-1 on the road, assistant coach Jason Dowiak said this road trip is an opportunity to prove that they can finish the season strong. “We weren’t obviously (strong) with the last road trip down to Cincinnati and Louisville, so we want redeem ourselves a little bit as well and being able to prove that we can win on the road,” Dowiak said.  He also said one of the keys to defeating SMU is to slow down their set pieces, which are open plays such as free kicks, throw-ins and corner kicks following a dead ball. “ scores about a third of their goal on set pieces,” Dowiak said. “They got good team size, pretty good small players that make the bigger players a bit dangerous, but what we’ve seen is that they’re predominantly threatening on their set pieces.” According to Dowiak, the average height of the Mustangs is 5-foot-9 with freshman forward Kelsey Gorney listed at 5-foot-3 to redshirt junior goalkeeper Lauryn Booden at 5-foot-11. USF comes into the final week of regular season play with a 3-1 victory over Memphis, where three Bulls scored in a span of seven minutes Friday night and a 2-2 draw against Rutgers on Sunday to end play at home.  If the Bulls were to defeat both SMU and Houston this week, they will finish in the top four in the American Athletic Conference standings. They currently sit at sixth place, three points behind UConn for fourth place as the conference tournament draws near. Similar to the Bulls, the Mustangs come into the week with a 2-1 win last Sunday against Houston over the weekend, who USF will play to end the regular season. The match starts at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time or 8 p.m. EST.