By Official Florida FC
The UNF women’s soccer team is off to a hot start to the season.
The Ospreys (6-2-1) face their sternest test to date. The program will leave the state for the first time in five weeks on Thursday night when it travels to Louisville to play Bellarmine.
UNF enters the contest after a surprising 3-0 home loss to Central Arkansas on Sept. 26 to abruptly snap a six-match unbeaten streak.
“They outworked us from the opening whistle to the final one,” UNF head coach Eric Faulconer said after the Central Arkansas loss. “We were sloppy with the ball in the back and we gave away a lot of balls in the midfield. We were inept offensively. Emma Hawkins was the best player of the field today. We had no answer for her this afternoon. Our team and coaching staff will need to learn from this and put it behind us. We have four straight difficult games on the road and we will quickly learn what we are all about during this stretch.”
Indeed they will. Though matches against Bellarmine, Eastern Kentucky (Oct. 3), Stetson (Oct. 7) and Florida Gulf Coast (Oct. 10) are all away from Hodges Stadium, the latter two will have added importance as they are ASUN Conference East contests and will dictate seeding in this year’s conference tournament.
UNF has never made the NCAA Tournament as a Division I program and made little secret of its desire to breakthrough this year.
The Ospreys were picked to win the ASUN Conference regular season title, along with Lipscomb. Through the first month of the season, UNF played like it. The Ospreys challenged a very good USF team, picked up a road win in Miami over FIU and shutout a Mercer squad that was predicted to finish in the top three of the Southern Conference this year.
All of those early-season results will be for naught if the Ospreys cannot create the same spark that propelled the team to an overtime victory over Lipscomb last week.
Lipscomb at UNF women’s soccer
![Lipscomb at UNF women's soccer at Jacksonville's Hodges Stadium](https://www.officialfloridafc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/UNF-vs.-Lipscomb-womens-soccer-04.jpg")
UNF wins ASUN Conference opener in overtime
