UT Tyler's Courtney Criswell (7) gets a kill against LeTourneau University, at the Herrington Patriot Center, on UT Tyler campus. ( Lang White / Correspondent )

UT Tyler’s fast start on the pitch has made the nation take notice.

The Patriot women’s soccer squad started with a five-game unbeaten streak and that has propelled the team from being unranked to the highest national ranking in program history.

The Patriots (4-0-1) are No. 11 in this week’s D3soccer.com poll and are at No. 22 in the NSCAA NCAA D-III National Poll, which were both released on Tuesday.

UT Tyler was unranked in both preseason polls, but has since opened the season by outscoring opponents 18-2 with three shutouts and playing to a 1-1 draw at No. 5 Trinity last Friday. The previous best ranking in program history was at No. 19 last season.

“Every year we have been that team knocking on the door, so it’s pretty exciting to see that we are getting some recognition for the work we’ve been putting in,” UT Tyler head coach Stefani Webb said. “At the same time, the mission is still the same and we have to remain focused on what has made us successful. We are No. 11 right now, but we have McMurry and Hardin-Simmons this weekend. You can’t get too excited because there is still a lot of work to do.”

Morgan Monzingo has four goals and two assists to lead the Patriots.

In total, 10 Patriots have recorded goals this season, with Nikki Gordon contributing three and Caitlyn Mortus and Brittany Matthews each scoring two goals. Kayla Akin, Maci Feliz, Meagan Stewart, Astryd Valenzuela and Kathleen Johnson each have one goal, while goalkeeper Hanna Fischer has only faced 11 shots throughout her 335 minutes in goal due to a stifling UT Tyler defense and an offense that has maintained possession for most of the season.

There’s a big weekend of soccer as the Patriots host McMurry (1-2) at 5 p.m. Thursday atCitizens 1st Bank-Perkins Soccer Complex before welcoming in Hardin-Simmons (3-1-1) for a 2 p.m. game on Saturday.

The men’s game against McMurry on Thursday is at 7 p.m., while the match with Hardin-Simmons is at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The Patriots’ men’s team is 1-2-1 on the season, with three games going to overtime, including two that went double OT.

 

STROTHER HONORED

UT Tyler senior Chestley Strother became the Patriots’ all-time assists leader after a two-assist, two-goal performance in her soccer team’s 5-1 win over Southwestern in Georgetown on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the Whitehouse High School graduate was named the American Southwest Conference Offensive Player of the Week on Tuesday.

Strother, who earned her first weekly award in her career from the ASC, now has 21 assists and 21 goals in her career. She also added an assist to Nikki Gordon in the draw at Trinity and leads the conference with six assists this season.

McMurry’s Holliday Williams is second in the ASC with three assists. Strother has assisted on three of Monzingo’s goals this season and has also set Brittany Matthews and Kayla Akin up for goals.

Strother’s record-breaking assist came in the sixth minute of play at Southwestern when she found Monzingo for a goal before she scored back-to-back goals to help the Patriots pull away from the Pirates. Strother passed Leigh Garner (2003-06), who had held the program’s all-time assist record at 19 and is now sixth all-time in goal-scoring.

 

PERFECT 10 FOR LINDSEY

UT Tyler senior Laura Lindsey has earned the 10th American Southwest Conference Golfer of the Week in her career after finishing third at the season-opening O’Brien National Invitational earlier this week in Granger, Indiana.

Lindsey shot a 36-hole score of 148 (74-74) to medal in her senior season’s first tournament. A senior from Montgomery who comes into this season with 10 wins that include the 2013 NCAA Division III National Championship, Lindsey finished the tournament with six birdies and was 3-under-par on par-5s.

The Patriots claimed third in the 10-team tournament with a 632 (320-312) team total, which was behind tournament champion Wittenberg University (292-299-591) and runner-up George Fox’s score of 616.

Lindsey shared the honor with Shelby Allen of Concordia-Texas.

The Patriots will now have two weeks of practice rounds before hosting the Al Jones Memorial Invitational, which will be played from Sept. 28-29 at the Eagle’s Bluff Country Club in Bullard.

 

BENSON & BRUNSON

Winning races and awards is becoming routine for Brittany Brunson (Austin) and Conner Benson (Humble) to start their senior seasons.

The two UT Tyler cross country runners earned American Southwest Conference Runners of the Week for the second straight week after winning last Friday’s King Campbell Spectacular.

Benson continued his strong start to the 2015 season winning the King Campbell Spectacular last Friday. Benson completed the two-mile course in 9 minutes and 30 seconds, which was 8 seconds ahead of his teammate, Matthew Markert, who finished second.

“I thought this was a great opportunity to come out here and get a good race in,” Benson said. “We had a faster pace, which was something I had not done so far this year. I was excited about the results we got tonight and I think we are ready to push ourselves even more now.”

Brunson earned her second straight win of the season, taking first-place at the King Campbell Spectacular in a time of 11:17.

Brunson, who also won the season-opening Braveheart Invitational, is now a two-time King Campbell Spectacular champion after also winning the meet last season. She led from start to finish on Friday to pace a Patriots team that had 10 of the top 11 runners at the meet.