Concordia University Golden Bear Women’s Soccer Christens New Sea Foam Stadium

Golden Bear women's soccer is the first team to officially take the field at the new Sea Foam Stadium in St. Paul.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia University Golden Bear soccer team’s winning streak came to an end Saturday in the inaugural game at Sea Foam Stadium in front of a crowd of 300 plus. Despite taking 10 shots, the Golden Bears (3-1-1) were unable to score and suffered their first loss of the season at the hands of the Northern Michigan Wildcats (2-1-0), 3-0.  BOX SCORE

New digital scoreboard sits at the north end of the stadium

Northern Michigan scored their first goal at the 29:05 mark in the first half and never looked back. The Wildcats scored two more goals in the second half to ice the victory. The Wildcats had 18 shots total in the game, putting six on-goal. Their goalie, Kara Music, had 3 saves in the game.

The Golden Bears controlled the opening minutes of the first soccer game played at CU’s new Sea Foam Stadium, but their prowess waned as time rolled on.  They came back with two scoring opportunities in the second half and nearly turned an open shot before being called for offsides.

Golden Bear goalkeeper, Kaitlin Budd had 3 saves to lead the defensive charge.  On offense, CU had 10 shots with three on-goal. They were led by Kari Janes and Arielle Stimson with 2 shots each.

The bigger story of the day was really the inaugural sporting event at the newest stadium in Minnesota which is now on campus at Concordia University in St. Paul, MN.

Sea Foam Stadium is a $14.5 million dollar stadium that athletic director Tom Rubbelke thinks will draw more student athletes to the college and help to spread the word about the division II school even if the school population is less than 1,000 students.

Concordia keeper Kaitlin Budd minds the net while taking in the view of the new stadium.

“I view it as part of the growing process of  being in the Northern Sun Conference,” said Rubbelke. “This is a very competitive league. If you’re going to attract players to your school, you have to have good facilities.”

The stadium that the Golden Bears played on for the first time on Saturday is not the finished product, according to Rubbelke.

“A lot of schools take two years to build a stadium,” Rubbelke stated. “We are doing this in phases. It’ll be better down the line, but it’ll still be very good this year.”

The stadium will seat 3,000 when the first phase is completed. The main seating is finished but a visitors seating area will still be going up this fall and the school hopes to have it in place for their first home football game on September 19 against Winona State.

The Sea Foam Stadium also has a state of the art poured running track as well as a large electronic scoreboard.

Other features the school hopes to add a year or two down the line are locker rooms, a permanent press box and more seating.

Soccer clubs will be interested to know that a dome that will be fitted over the field after the fall sports season giving the college a large year round practice facility for football and soccer as well as baseball and softball.

CU returns to action Sunday, September 6 against the Colorado School of Mines in a 1:00 game being played at Upper Iowa in Fayette, Iowa. The Golden Bears return home next Saturday, September 12 to take on Luther College at 3:00.

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