Messiah College’s soccer program – men’s and women’s – are no stranger when it comes to the NCAA Division III record book. On Wednesday, No. 1 Messiah women’s soccer junior goalkeeper Audra Larson etched her name in the record book again; This time for shutting out an opponent for the 55th time in her career.
In 2012, Larson’s 22 season shutouts broke the single-season shutout record, which was previously held by Puget Sound’s Erin Williams’ 20 shutouts in 22 game . Larson’s 22 shutouts came in a 26-game season en route to the Lady Falcons’ fifth national championship title.
Her 55 and counting career shutouts surpassed the old record of 54 shutouts held by Messiah’s Autumn Reilly (2008-11) and Otterbein’s Tara Carter (2007-10). Reilly played in 61 games, while Carter competed in 86 games. In comparison Larson shutout her opponents 55 times in 70 career games.
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As mentioned above, Larson has recorded a shutout in 55 of 70 games. In the 15 non-shutout games, she’s only allowed 17 goals across three seasons of action. The most goals allowed in one season was seven during the 2012 campaign. So far in 2014, Larson has held opponents to four goals and no opponent has found the twice more than once.
Except for one match this season, Larson has played at least a full 90. Her leadership in net has allowed Messiah to lay the foundation for another conference championship run and potential deep NCAA Tournament run in hopes of winning their program’s sixth title.
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Wednesday’s record-setting affair ended in a 4-0 win over Commonwealth Conference rival Lebanon Valley. With the win, No. 2 seeded Messiah College travels to No. 1 seeded Stevenson University on Saturday. Earlier in the regular season, Messiah and Stevenson battled to a 1-1 double-overtime affair.
In case you are wondering, Messiah is the No. 2 in conference play due to tiebreaker rules. Both Messiah and Stevenson went 7-0-1 in conference play and went 0-0-1 head-to-head. The second tiebreaker is to see who scored more goals against the next highest seed. In this case, Stevenson scored two against the No. 3 seed Lebanon Valley College, while Messiah only scored one against the Dutchmen.
Earlier this week Larson was named to the All-Commonwealth Honorable Mention team for the second straight year. In 2012, she was named to the second team All-Commonwealth team.
Saturday’s match should be another test for Larson and company as they look to win the program’s eighth-straight Commonwealth Conference Championship and 13th and the last 14 years. Since 2000, 2006 was the only time Messiah women’s soccer did not win the C’Wealth Conference Championship.