Southeast Missouri State women's soccer team features three local players

Two new additions give the Southeast Missouri State women's soccer team three players from local high schools.

Junior Courtney Luehmann, a Notre Dame Regional High School graduate, already has established herself among the Redhawks' top performers the past two years.

Luehmann earned first-team all-Ohio Valley Conference honors last season when she ranked second on the squad with five goals.

Three of Luehmann's goals were game-winners. She tied for third in the OVC in that department.

"She had a great year for us," Southeast coach Heather Nelson said. "She was really a clutch player."

Sarah Uptmor

Luehmann, however, will miss some early games due to a stress fracture.

New to the program are freshman Kasey Crowden from Jackson High School and junior Sarah Uptmor, a Central High School product who played the past two years on the NAIA level at Spring Hill College in Alabama.

Crowden and Uptmor both played in the Southeast Missouri Soccer Club program directed by Southeast assistant coach Paul Nelson -- Heather's husband -- so the Redhawks' staff is familiar with them.

"And they're both naturally left-footed, which is an advantage," Heather Nelson said. "It's like a pitcher in baseball."

Of Crowden, Nelson said: "I think she'll end up being a player for us. It's going to take time."

Kasey Crowden

The same goes for Uptmor as she adjusts to a higher level of college soccer. She led Spring Hill in scoring with 18 points on six goals and six assists last season.

"She did very well there, but it's different, going from NAIA to Division I," Nelson said.

Added Nelson: "It's always great to have local players. And we've got two from Marion, Ill. [Stephanie Palmer and Jessica Crabtree], which is close by. We've got a neat roster."

Southeast had an additional local player the past two years, but Jackson's Bobbi Jo Schlick, who would have been a junior, decided not to return to the team this year although she remains enrolled at Southeast.

Nelson said Schlick, an OVC all-newcomer selection as a freshman, is in a very challenging academic field and wanted to concentrate more on that.

"She wants to be a speech therapist. She felt it was difficult to balance everything," Nelson said. "But the door is open for her if anything changes. There were no hard feelings."

Iron woman

Senior defender Nikki Edwards started the first game of her true freshman season. She has not been out of the lineup since.

Edwards enters her final campaign riding a string of 50 consecutive starts.

"She's very passionate about the game and she's been a very good player," Nelson said.

Edwards, a native of Canada, said she hasn't really given much thought to the streak but would like to keep it going.

"That's the plan," she said.

Improved digs

While most people have correlated the Houck Stadium renovations with Southeast football, Nelson and her squad also are excited about the improvements that include a new FieldTurf playing surface and a new state-of-the-art scoreboard.

"We might have the best playing field in the country now," Nelson said. "It's very exciting. Our goalkeepers said it was like going from diving on concrete to sleeping at the Hampton Inn."

Three captains

Southeast's captains for this season are Edwards, senior Vanessa Hart and senior Shona Goodwin.

Hart missed all of last season with a knee injury. The second-team all-OVC performer as a freshman in 2007 has battled knee problems since then but appears to be healthy.

"I feel good. It's been too long," said Hart, who is from Australia.