MOBILE, Ala. – On the heels of back-to-back wins, the University of South Alabama soccer team heads back out on the road for matches at Mississippi State and Alabama A&M.

Friday's clash in Starkville starts at 7 p.m. and Sunday's match will kick off at 1 p.m. Live stats will be available on the host schools' web site.

The Jaguars are coming off a 2-0 weekend where they outscored their opponents a combined 13-0, defeating Southern Miss 6-0 and Southern University 7-0. USA has won four of its last five outings, all by shutout.

"It was nice (to get two wins on the weekend), but more importantly, it was nice to get two 90-minute performances as well," USA head coach Graham Winkworth said. "On the opening weekend, we started the game poorly against UAB and in the second weekend we had lapses against Kennesaw State despite dominating the game. I don't think we had any lapses this weekend; we were very professional in both games. We kept our discipline in a difficult Southern Mississippi game. We controlled it and attacked very well, and our finishing is improving with each game.

"You can go to some difficult environments like Southern University and change your mentality based on the opponent, but our girls were professional in the fact that they didn't do that. We scored five early goals and maintained possession for much of the second half.  Without being disrespectful to our opponent, we were able to make the game more worthwhile and get a few things achieved on a difficult field."

The team's 13 goals last weekend came from nine different players, with freshmen Rio Hardy (Workington, England) and Sophie Haywood (Hull, England) each contributing three goals to South Alabama's cause. No one player has become the go-to scorer, giving Winkworth the offensive balance he wants.

"I think we have nine or 10 different goal scorers and 10 or 11 assist makers, and it's just showing the quality we have going forward," Winkworth said. "I don't want to be a one- or two-person team that's scoring all the goals because that's very easy to defend against. When you have four or five leading goal scorers on the team, and a lot of goal scorers total, it just means that if one player's having a down day or the opponent is playing well against them, somebody else is going to step up. It means we're a difficult team to prepare for; we have a lot of weapons. I knew that coming in that it could be the case and I'm delighted that at the moment, we're on track to have a bunch of girls to score eight, nine, 12 goals or more in a season rather than just one or two."

Four players are tied for the team lead with four goals, with three of those freshmen.

Mississippi State leads the all-time series with South Alabama 6-3, but is looking for revenge after last season's 3-2 USA victory in Mobile. The Bulldogs have won back-to-back matches—defeating Southern Miss in overtime and blanking Arkansas State—after starting out 0-3.

"They're huge favorites being an SEC opponent," Winkworth said. "I know that we got the result against them last year; however, we've lost most of that squad. We're in a rebuilding stage and that is moving very smoothly off the field and it's starting to happen on the field as well now. Mississippi State's coach joined their program on the same day I started here, so they've gone through some changes as well. They're obviously a major institution in maybe the biggest conference in the country and so we know we'll be in for a very difficult match. We look forward to those types of challenges because we don't want to be playing in games where we can play in first or second gear. We want to be forced to play in a top gear, and Mississippi State are definitely the type of opponent that will do that to us. They're a well-coached team with lots of talent."

Sunday will be just the second meeting between South Alabama and Alabama A&M in the last eight seasons. Last year in Mobile, the Jaguars put up their highest goal total since 2007 in an 11-0 victory. AAMU enters Sunday's contest with an 0-5 record and has been outscored 42-0.

"It's important that we continue to respect every opponent that we play," Winkworth noted. "I've not seen Alabama A&M play, but their results have not been particularly strong. However, we'll treat them with the utmost respect. We hope to field more players on Sunday and give some players some rest because we'll be coming into a big homestand right after this weekend. We want to stay healthy and get healthy, but it's very important that we also respect that Alabama A&M will have some weapons and can catch us on the break, so we must remain professional going into every game."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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