Oct. 3, 2012

OXFORD, Miss. - The Rebel soccer team returns home from a two-week road swing to host the Georgia Bulldogs and Kentucky Wildcats this weekend at the Ole Miss Soccer Complex.

Ole Miss (9-4, 2-4 SEC) will take on Georgia (5-6-2, 1-3-2) at 7 p.m. on Friday night before hosting Kentucky (8-3-1, 3-2-1) at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Friday night will be Kids Day Out at the park where school-aged kids can receive a free soccer ball drawstring backpack and stand on the field with the Rebels during the national anthem. Oxford Park Commission teams will also play an exhibition game on the field at halftime.

Sunday's contest will be Greek Day at the soccer stadium with the campus's Greek organizations competing for prizes as the rowdiest group in attendance to support the Rebels. Free sunglasses will be distributed to students in attendance with their greek letters on display. The Double Decker bus will also be shuttling students to the stadium from the Residential Colleges for free.

The Rebels return home for the first time in two weeks after playing four straight road contests at No. 16 Missouri, Alabama, No. 24 Florida and at Auburn. With the return to the friendly confines of the Ole Miss Soccer Complex, the Rebels look to break into the double digit numbers for wins on the season and move up in the SEC standings.

"We're happy to be back at home," said Ole Miss head coach Matthew Mott. "(Georgia) will be a good match for us. They're a good team. We're going to have to execute a lot better than we did over the weekend as we get prepared for Georgia. We're fighting hard and working hard. The effort is really, really good. We just have to be a little cleaner in our attacking."

Leading the way for the Rebels are juniors Mandy McCalla and Rafaelle Souza who lead the Southeastern Conference in goals this season with 10 goals each. Souza is also tops in the league in points (24), while McCalla is second in the league in points (23).

Ole Miss has gotten goals from 10 different players this season, led by McCalla and Souza. Freshman Olivia Henderson is second on the squad with five goals this season. Ball distribution has also been a strength of the Rebels through the first seven weeks of the season with 11 different players recording assists. Souza leads the way with four along with freshman Sara Coleman and junior Erin Emerson who also have four assists each.

Georgia enters the weekend coming off a weekend that saw the Bulldogs fall to the Missouri Tigers last Friday night before tying the LSU Tigers on Sunday afternoon. Georgia is led offensively by a pair of players who have scored four goals each in Meghan Gibbs and Bella Hartley. Georgia's lone SEC win this season is against Arkansas, with ties against LSU and Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs have fallen to Florida, Missouri and Alabama.

Kentucky comes into the weekend with a Friday night contest at Missouri before facing the Rebels on Sunday. The Wildcats have seen nine different players score goals this season with Courtney Raetzman and Kelli Hubly notching four goals each this season. Caitlin Landis is the leading ball distributer with a team-leading five assists this season.