Beginning with their match against Tulane on Friday night, the Saint Louis University women’s soccer team meets a challenge that no team in the program’s history has ever faced: defending their Conference USA regular season title from last season.

“We know that the conference will be even,” said coach Tim Champion. “We feel that we can win every game. Of course, you’re not going to, but we feel that we can. That’s important.”

The players see the importance of their upcoming conference games.

“Every game has importance,” said Jenny Kehl. “We want to win all the games we play, regardless of whether they’re in conference or not. We just take one game at a time. If we take a lesser team lightly, we drop in the conference standings.”

The Billikens enter C-USA play with a 4-1 record after losing, 2-1, to Iowa in overtime last Sunday.

“We dominated the game. But we just couldn’t finish,” Champion said.

The Hawkeyes took a 1-0 lead midway through the first half. Kate Walse scored from seven yards out off a pass from Sarah Kiefer.

SLU tied the match in the 51st minute. Kathy Musschoot took a pass from Shannon Myers and scored from five yards out.

“It was a great goal,” Champion said. “She pushed the ball through the slot. She held off two defenders for a 10-yard run and hit a shot through the slot that beat the keeper.

She’s really beginning to develop.”

Both teams battled through the rest of the second half, but neither could take the advantage. The game moved into overtime.

The Hawkeyes won the game 10 minutes into overtime. Walse scored again from five yards out off a pass from Linzy Wolman.

Even though the Billikens lost, they had many opportunities to win, hitting the crossbar three times.

“If you don’t finish your chances, you run the chance of getting beat,” Champion said. “It will let us know that there will be games where no matter how well you play, you can get beat. It was a team we felt clearly we should have beaten.”

The Billikens look to rebound from that loss as they travel to Tulane tomorrow. SLU defeated Tulane last season, 3-0, at Robert R. Hermann Stadium.

SLU returns home to host Southern Miss on Sunday, Sept. 17.

The Billikens defeated Southern Miss, 3-0, on the road during the regular season. But the Golden Eagles defeated the Billikens 2-1 in the first round of the C-USA Tournament in Farmer’s Branch, Texas.

“My biggest hope for Sunday (against Southern Miss) isn’t just that we destroy them, but that the fans support us,” said goalie Meghann Burke.

“Both teams are playing moderately well,” Champion said.

“We need to get off to a good start. We’re expected to win. We need to go out and start 2-0 and get a good jump on the rest of the field.”

Winning their first two conference games and building momentum early is of utmost importance to the Billikens as they begin play in the balanced Conference USA.

“Any one of six teams could win the conference,” Champion said. “Marquette is ranked nationally and has a good recruiting class. Charlotte has started out very well.

“Houston beat Texas. South Florida has played tight games recently. They’ve played three nationally-ranked teams. Even though they lost, they lost by close margins,”

Champion said.

“Cincinnati has scored a lot of goals recently,” Champion added. “They have two good freshmen who have scored a lot.”

Another sign of the strength of the conference is the number of teams that are ranked regionally.

Soccerbuzz’s poll has Charlotte ranked 10th in the Southeast region, SLU ranked fifth in the Central and Marquette ranked third in the Great Lakes region.

NSCAA’s poll has Charlotte ranked ninth in the Southeast region, SLU ranked fifth in the Central, Marquette ranked seventh and Cincinnati ranked ninth in the Great Lakes region.

The Billikens are looking forward to defending their title.

“We finally feel like we’re in the season. Our conference is really leveling the playing field,” Burke said.

“It’s exciting. It’ll be a great year for Conference USA. It’s fun to come back as defending champions. The conference is getting stronger, and it’s more fun to play in close games.”

“If we play as a team, like we know how to play, we’ll be fine,” said Kathleen Schager.