It's that time of the season where the matches mean a little bit more and the stakes have been raised.
 

On Friday night, the Alabama State women's soccer team will open Southwestern Athletic Conference play at Prairie View A&M.   
 

Match is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. (CT).  
 

To follow live stats, go to bamastatesports.com, scroll down to the Upcoming Events Calendar, and click on the link under coverage.  
 

It will be the first of 10 conference matches that will run until the end of the regular season on Halloween.  
 

The schedule contrasts in comparison to last season, in which the Lady Hornets played just four conference games in winning the SWAC East Division with a 4-0 mark.

Division realignment has bunched all the SWAC teams together from the East and West to form an 11-team division.  It has also added Howard University to the conference.  

The Lady Hornets (3-6 overall, 2-5 road) will be looking to break a four-match skid and get more shots put on goal.  Opponents have held a 114-28 shots on goal advantage thus far through nine matches and have outscored ASU 29-4.  
 

But, ASU defeated Prairie View A&M 2-1 in last season's meeting.  
 

Sophomore striker Aaliyah Lewis leads the Lady Hornets with three goals, an assist and two game-winning goals.  Lewis also leads the team in shots with 21 and shots on goal with 10.  She took three shots in the team's previous match at Alabama and fired one shot on goal.  
 

Junior defender Shelbi Vienna-Hallam had an active game, pushing her presence onto the offensive side for the Lady Hornets.  While her main duties have been to protect the back line of defense, Vienna-Hallam also took three shots at Alabama.  
 

Another player that coach Jodie Smith could look to for an increase in scoring punch is freshman Sabina Claesson.  The midfielder from Sweden attempted one shot at Alabama and has one winning goal on the season back on September 5 at UNC-Asheville. 
 

In goal, Kylee Hathaway and Zaria Maynard have split time in recent matches.  Hathaway has 77 saves in over 608 minutes of action (.740 save percentage) while Maynard has tallied seven saves in just over 91 minutes in net (.778 save percentage).  
 

The Panthers (1-6 overall, 1-2 home) are coming off a 2-0 loss at Texas State last Friday.  
 

Prairie View is led by Alicia Cooper and Breana Powell, who each have a goal and an assist.  The Panthers have broken up their minutes to three different goalkeepers.
Bianca Garza has received the most time in goal, amassing 313 minutes and picking up 36 saves (.818 save percentage).