STATESBORO, Ga. - The Georgia State men's soccer team snapped a 1-1 tie with a pair of late second-half goals to pick up a 3-1 Sun Belt Conference victory over host Georgia Southern on Saturday evening at Eagle Field.
The win was the fifth in the last six matches for the Panthers (8-4, 1-0 SBC), while Georgia Southern falls to 5-5 overall and 1-1 in the Sun Belt with the loss. The Panthers also claim the first point of the Southern vs. State Rivalry Series with the victory.
Georgia State got on the scoreboard first with a goal off of a set piece in the 33rd minute. Kyle Clinton scored off of a free kick from Liam Fitzimmons from the right side of the box to put the visitors up 1-0. The Panthers would keep that one-goal lead into the break. Shots were fairly even between the two teams as Georgia Southern had six shots at halftime and Georgia State had five.
Georgia Southern found the equalizer just minutes into the second half. A free kick 28 yards out was put home by
Javier Carbonell, his second goal of the season, in the 49th minute to make the score 1-1.
The match turned in the 62nd minute as a challenge just inside the box from the Eagles was whistled for a penalty, and Hannas Burmeister successfully converted the kick for the 2-1 lead. Georgia Southern had many chances to find another equalizer but a great header chance by Carbonell went wide in the 79th minute, and back-to-back header shots by
Emil Laursen and
Blake Wilson each went high in the 87th and 88th minute.
The Panthers put the match away in the 88th minute as Rashid Alarape took the ball off of an Eagle defender in the top of the box, dribbled in and scored with just two minutes and 20 seconds remaining in the contest.
"I thought we had a good grip of the game until that point," Head Coach
John Murphy said about the opening goal of the match by Georgia State. "They come down one time and we give away a set piece. They score on the set pice and it just encourages the opposition. It's a little disappointing and obviously Georgia State are a good team, they've proven they can take it to anyone.
"We changed a couple of things personnel-wise, to try and light a fire underneath them," Coach Murphy said about the opening to the second half. "The response mentally was good. But there's no use expending all your energy to get a goal, only to come down at the other end and concede a penalty. Ultimately we didn't create enough in the run of play and the final ball was really poor. We have to find a way to bounce back from this."
The Eagles finished the night with a 14-10 edge in shots.
Torgeir Fjaer for Georgia Southern and Yannic Horn for Georgia State each finished with two saves in net. Georgia Southern had a 7-2 edge in corner kicks and the Eagles were called for 14 fouls, compared to 10 for the Panthers. Georgia Southern was offsides four times on the night and Georgia State was offsides three times.
Georgia Southern next begins a three-game road trip on Wednesday, October 11, visiting Campbell for a 3 p.m. non-conference contest in Buies Creek, N.C.
