Strong First Half Not Enough at NC State
10/12/2011 1:48:00 AM | Men's Soccer
RALEIGH, N.C. - Georgia Southern opened strong, but a second half shooting barrage by NC State gave the Pack a 1-0 win on cool, wet Tuesday evening at Dail Stadium. The loss drops the Eagles to 7-5-1 overall, but does not affect Georgia Southern's SoCon leading 3-1-0 conference record. NC State moves to 5-6-2.
"We played one of the better halves of soccer this season to open the match, but we couldn't get the last pass in the final third," said Head Coach Kevin Kennedy. "In the second half we were a little stale and NC State pounced on us. They really shut us down after scoring the goal, and we only got one really good attack in late. We have to turn our attention to Appalachian State on Friday and figure out a way to stay top of the league."
The Eagles took the fight to the Wolfpack in the early minutes, taking control of the early run of play. Georgia Southern led NC State, 4-2 in shots in the opening period and 3-1 in shots on goal.
The tide, however, turned in the second half as NC State pushed forward logged nine shots in the first 25 minutes of the second half. The Wolfpack took the lead, 1-0 with a goal by Nazmi Albadwi in the 70th minute. He scored the one-timer past Eagle goalkeeper Ryan Platt (Preston, England) to earn the advantage with 20 minutes to play.
That goal would be decider as the Wolfpack held on for the 1-0 victory. Georgia Southern recorded just two shots in the second half and was led in attack by Hunter Norton (Evans, Ga.) with two shots.
Georgia Southern returns home for its last home match of the regular season against Appalachian State on Friday, October 14th. The match against the Mountaineers starts at 4 p.m.
Fans can follow their Eagles at GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com or receive short updates at facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics or on Google+ at gplus.to/GSAthletics.
