June 13, 2012
BATTLE FOR FIRST PLACE
Wildcats host Rough Riders women

Coming off back-to-back wins, the first-place New Jersey Wildcats look to position itself atop the W-League Northeast Division Table on Thursday night, hosting the second-place Long Island Rough Riders at The College of New Jersey's Lions Stadium in Ewing, N.J.

A win would give the Wildcats (3-1-2, 11 points) a five-point lead over the Rough Riders (3-2-0, nine) as it heads into the final month of the regular season.

"The way the division is shaking out, there is a lot riding on this game," Wildcats coach Jim Gabarra said. "It has become a lot more even in the standings over the past few weeks. There has been some surprise results, and we have let some points slip away."

This match marked the second meeting between the Wildcats and Long Island, with the first encoutner resulting in a 3-2 win for the Rough Riders after a stoppage-time own goal.

"We have three total games against Long Island, and this is our first home game with them," Gabarra said. "We dropped a heart breaking loss up there in Long Island, so we have to do our best tomorrow to get back those three points. We want to make sure we stay ahead of the pack, and the way we do that is to take each game one at a time and make sure to not look too far ahead."

After starting the season with three consecutive wins, the Rough Riders have come out on the wrong side of their last two results, 1-0 defeats to the New York Magic and North Jersey Valkyries. Long Island have a plus 16 goal differential (20-4), which would be used as the tiebreaker if the teams finished even. The Wildcats are plus nine (19-10).