Men?s Soccer Downs UNC Greensboro for the First Time 2-1

STATESBORO, Ga. – The Georgia Southern men’s soccer team defeated UNC Greensboro 2-1 Tuesday afternoon at Eagle Field. The win was a first for the Eagles against the Spartans. Georgia Southern had been winless against UNC Greensboro in the all-time series.

The Eagles improve to 7-8-0 (4-3-0) on the season, while the Spartans fall to 6-11-1 (2-5-0).

Georgia Southern took a 2-0 lead in the first half. Jarryd Nolette (Winemere, Fla.) scored the first goal of the match in the 16th minute. B.J. Reine (Baton Rouge, La.) passed the ball from the right side of the box, and Nolette tapped it in for his second goal of the season.

“I thought we came out with a lot of energy and gave one of our best halves of the year,” said head coach Kevin Kennedy. “We had a lot of energy and movement off the ball, and Jarryd ran up and got a nice deflection. It was a nice goal.”

The Eagles added to their 1-0 lead in the 28th minute. Joe Madigan (Centennial, Colo.) scored his first goal of the season off of a Danny Hall (Conyers, Ga.) pass.

Georgia Southern played great defense in the first half. Sean Sandoval (Aurora, Colo.) stopped two different attempts to move the ball into the box by UNC Greensboro in the 13th minute of action.

The Spartans exited the locker room at halftime and quickly scored. Tim Masters scored his fourth of the season in the 46th minute to make the score 2-1.

“We had talked at halftime about in the first ten minutes [of the second half] of keeping a clean sheet and then adjusting and going from there. When you give up the goal a minute and 42 seconds into the half, that is out the window,” said coach Kennedy.

The Eagles’ defense made a number of fine stops in the second half and held on to win the match 2-1. Joey Ralph (Martinez, Ga.) made three saves in the match.

The Eagles will return to action this weekend in the Southern Conference Tournament.

Category: Men's Soccer

Published on Tuesday, 04 November 2008 00:09