ALLENDALE, Mich. – The No. 3 Grand Valley State soccer team stays home for their lone match of the week as they host the cross-town Davenport Panthers on Sunday (Oct. 6) at 1:00 PM at the GVSU Soccer Field. The Lakers have won three straight contests, all via shutout, and enter Sunday's final match of non-conference play 6-1 on the season.
 
After conceding a last-minute goal in their lone loss of the season, the Lakers have gone 270 straight minutes without allowing their opposition to score. This is the 17^th straight season GVSU has posted at least three consecutive shutouts. The offense, meanwhile, found their form last week with 11 goals in the two matches. Ava Cook led the way with five of them en route to her second GLIAC Offensive Player of the Week honor of the season.
 
"We're starting to become more dangerous and find good attacking options through possession," said head coach Jeff Hosler. "We've been preaching that and working on it since fall camp and it's nice to see results starting to translate on the game field."
 
Davenport has a new head coach, Paige Eli, who despite a 2-4 start has her team playing extremely competitively; five of six have been decided by one goal and of their 11 goals conceded this year, six of them came in one match.
 
"Paige did good work as the assistant coach and deserves this opportunity to lead Davenport. She's done a nice job keeping their aggressive and physical style while adding some new wrinkles that will challenge us," Hosler said.
 
The strength of this year's squad comes from a stout back line, led by redshirt-senior Imani Richards and senior Cassandra Bosworth. They've helped freshman keeper Samantha Beckles assimilate to the college game. She's played every minute in goal this season, making 35 saves for the Panthers including a season-high eight against then-No. 11 Ferris State. A balanced attack has seen four different Panthers score once each so far this season. They have experience up front in redshirt-senior forward Katherine Steiner, who leads the team with a goal and assist.
 
This will be the final match before GLIAC play begins next Friday, so the Lakers will look to build on the strong performances in their last few matches and make sure they are firing on all cylinders heading into conference play. The match can be seen on the Grand Valley Sports Network and live stats will be available through GVSULakers.com while @GVSUSoccer provides live Twitter updates.