LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Bellarmine University women's soccer team will finish off its longest road stretch of the regular season — and conclude road play in general — when the Knights head to Missouri to face Drury and Southwest Baptist.

The tail end of a four-game Great Lakes Valley Conference road cluster, Bellarmine (8-3-1, 5-3-1 GLVC) will travel to meet the Panthers (1-10-1, 1-8) at noon (ET) Friday before squaring off with the Bearcats (3-7-1, 2-7) at 1 p.m. Sunday. With six matches remaining, Bellarmine is tied for fifth in the GLVC with Indianapolis. The top eight teams make the conference tournament; the top four earn quarterfinal hosting duties.

"This is a big weekend for everyone around the league," Knights Coach Chris Tinius said. "With the exception of maybe Rockhurst (8-1 GLVC) and McKendree (7-1-1 GLVC), none of the rest of us should even feel comfortable about a spot in the conference tournament yet. You can't take that for granted. We have to go into this weekend thinking about getting a more firm grip on that and play with an appropriate focus and urgency."

Drury has lost six consecutive games but what jumps out is that the last five have all been by one-goal outcomes. This should cause the Knights to be on high alert; after all, less than two weeks ago they faced a Lindenwood squad that had lost a string of contests in the same close fashion and were defeated 1-0. Kayla Day has tallied three goals for the Panthers.

"Drury is another deceptive game that we have cautioned our players to make sure they look beyond the record," Tinius said. "They've played five straight one-goal games and nine of their 12 have been that way, so they are in every match. They finish at virtually the same rate we do, so it's imperative we are good in possession to create more opportunities than them and stay stingy on defense when we lose the ball. I like watching Chloe Cash on film. Kayla Day has missed a few games. I don't know what the issue has been, but if she is back they will be a pair to deal with." 

Southwest Baptist is a new member of the GLVC this season. The Bearcats have dropped four straight but, similar to Drury, three were one-goal losses — and to strong teams in Southern Indiana, McKendree and Quincy. Southwest Baptist will host Indianapolis on Friday and enters that contest 3-3-1 at home. Raegan Edwards has racked up six goals and Raquel Rodriguez has amassed five assists.

"As usual, we'll focus more on Southwest Baptist once we get through Friday," Tinius said, "but they've got one of the most productive attacking players in the league in Raegan Edwards, and they've been much better at home than on the road. It certainly won't be a walk in the park to wrap up the road trip."

Bellarmine is coming off a solid weekend on the road in which it defeated Illinois Springfield 2-0 and tied Lewis 1-1. There is now exactly one-third of the regular season remaining. The Knights have allowed only six goals this year, and one was an own goal. Bellarmine's 13 goals offensively aren't indicative of either the amount or quality of chances the Knights generate. That's why there's conflicting feelings about carrying a .708 winning percentage. While that's an entirely respectable mark, it's also very easy to surmise that the Knights would have already cracked double-digit wins if they had made good on not just a couple quality shots, but point-blank chances.

"We talked about that a bit postgame on Sunday and how, again, we are in just a unique spot," Tinius said. "We are 8-3-1 and we are playing generally well in almost every game. Up until about two weeks ago, we were ahead of where I thought we would be at almost every checkpoint. We simply need to finish better as the final piece of the puzzle — not just because we want more goals but to take some pressure off of other parts of the field so we don't feel like a single mistake might cost us a result. We know we don't have an All-American goal scorer and we aren't a team that is going to consistently score three goals a game, but we are capable of squeezing an extra goal out of every two or three games, which would give us an immensely different feel. I love our team and their commitment to each other and know they will keep after it until we find it."

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