Women's Soccer Defeats Chattanooga 3-2 in Overtime
10/3/2008 4:18:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Statesboro, Ga. ? The Georgia Southern Women’s Soccer team defeated Chattanooga 3-2 in overtime Friday afternoon at Eagle Field.
The Lady Eagles are now 4-4-2 (2-1-0) on the season and surpassed their win total from last season. The match was also Georgia Southern’s first home win this year.
The Lady Eagles had a number of early opportunities and were able to jump out to a 2-0 lead.
“We came out kind of flat today,” said Head Coach Ashley Hart. “It was a little bit of a worry even when we had the two goal lead. I felt that we were not playing like we should have. We have talked about needing to finish a game, and I was proud that we came back to finish it. I think we did miss a lot of early opportunities, and when you let a good team back into a game it is definitely going to be a fight.”
Freshman Danae Kaimuloa (Escondido, Calif.) scored the first goal of the match by finding some space and breaking away down the right side of the field. Kaimuloa had one defender to beat and did so scoring her fourth goal of the season in the 19th minute.
Senior Ashley Toussaint (Warner Robbins, Ga.) put the Lady Eagles up two goals to none in the 28th minute. Toussaint scored her eighth goal of the year off of a pass from Junior Niki Lepper (Carmel, Ind.).
“Ashley is a good player that draws a lot of attention especially in conference games. She did a good job to get a goal,” said Coach Hart.
In the 36th minute Georgia Southern was unable to clear the ball out of the box. Chattanooga got the ball past Junior Lauren Santos (Berwyn, Ill.) and the Lady Eagles' defense for the goal.
“We gave up a couple of soft goals today. We need to do a better job of communicating and clearing the ball out of our box,” said Coach Hart.
Chattanooga tied the match up in the 66th minute of action. Caroline DeRhodes scored her second goal of the match off a corner kick from Marlee Jenkins.
Neither team was able to score in the remainder of the second half, and the match headed to overtime.
The match seemed to be headed to a second overtime, but Kaimuloa had other plans. She knocked in her fourth goal of the season with only 55 seconds left in the first overtime period to give Georgia Southern a 3-2 win.
“Danae did a great job for us today. There was a lot of pressure on Ashley, and Danae was able to step up and finish the opportunities,” said Coach Hart.
The Lady Eagles return to action Sunday at 2 pm at Eagle Field against Samford.
