STATESBORO - Georgia Southern women's soccer notched its third straight Sun Belt Conference win with a 3-0 victory over visiting Coastal Carolina on Sunday afternoon at Eagle Field.
The Eagles improve to 5-3-5 overall and 4-1-2 in the Sun Belt with the victory, while Coastal Carolina falls to 2-9-3 overall and 1-5-1 in the league. The win was the third straight for Georgia Southern by multiple goals, the first time that's happened for the Eagles since the 2015 campaign. Georgia Southern will be next in action on Thursday, October 24, visiting ULM for an 8 p.m. ET matchup with the Warhawks in Monroe, La.
A quick goal off of a set piece gave the Eagles an early cushion in the first half. Junior
Maya Zovko's corner kick just one minute and 33 seconds into the match found the back of the net for the 1-0 lead. That one goal lead would hold into the break, where Georgia Southern would have a slight 8-6 edge in shots.
In the second half, the Eagles would add two in a 10-minute stretch to put the match away. in the 71st minute, freshman
Emma Armstrong's long ball from midfield found sophomore
Smith Cathey behind the defense. Cathey dribbled into the box on the right side, then slotted a pass to the front of goal where sophomore
Elis Nemtsov finished a point-blank shot to make the score 2-0.
In the 81st minute, sophomore
Courtney Jebavy's through ball to freshman
Kendall Wilson sent Wilson to the end line, where a cross found Armstrong right on the near post for another point-blank finish.
Meanwhile, freshman
Katie Oakley tallied three second-half saves to notch her fourth shutout of the season in net.
"It's impressive, early on in the season, it wasn't that we were playing bad," Georgia Southern Head Women's Soccer Coach
Chris Adams said about his team's third straight multi-goal victory. "We just didn't have a killer instinct in front of goal. It took us entirely too many chances to score goals. Today, we scored an early one, which gave us a margin for error, and to be honest, I don't think the first half was our best half of soccer. But I was pleased that at halftime we were able to make adjustments, take care of the ball a bit more and - ironically - Coastal is a very good counter-attacking team, but we were able to counter the counter-attacking team for the second goal. To get a third goal, it's great that we're not content at just two. Every time we've beaten Coastal before, it's been a 1-0 score. We shared that in the locker room beforehand, and told them that we want to set a new standard, so it was nice to get a resounding result."
Georgia Southern finished the match with a 20-14 edge in shots. Katelyn Kellogg made six saves in net for the Chanticleers. Each team had five corner kicks on the day, and Coastal was whistled for three fouls and three offsides, while the Eagles committed eight fouls and were offsides twice.