Soccer shutout streak continues

After its loss earlier this month at Armstrong Atlantic State University, the GCSU soccer team’s last three games all resulted in shutout victories.

“The last three games we played, those three teams have been ahead of us in some way shape or form whether in the conference standings or the regional ranking,” head coach Juan Pablo Favero said. “They were three huge games in that, by winning them, we’ve leapfrogged all three teams.

The Bobcats first shutout victory came Oct. 11 when they were on the road to face Clayton State University in Morrow.

GCSU took the lead over the Lakers in the 22nd minute when a cross from forward Lyric Burnett went to defender Kara Teresi, then to forward Jamie Nevin, who was able to send the ball into the back of Clayton State’s net and set the score at 1-0 in favor of the Bobcats.

The Bobcats struck again when in the 56th minute, Burnett, via an assist from defender/midfielder Ally Treat, scored off of a breakaway and gave GCSU a 2-0 lead over the Clayton State.

A three-goal cushion came for the Bobcats when, in the 86th minute, a shot from midfielder/forward Megan McAlpin was deflected by Clayton State’s goalkeeper, then again deflected by McAlpin before entering the Lakers’ goal and setting the final score at 3-0.

“Clayton was a critical game because we had just lost to Armstrong,” Favero said. “It was a great game for us because we’ve been good defensively, but we got our swagger back.”

GCSU was on the road again Oct. 17 to face Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla.

The Bobcats took charge 22 minutes into the game when freshman forward Anna Wierzbicki scored an unassisted goal from the left side of the penalty box and giving GCSU a 1-0 lead over the Saints.

When less than two minutes remained in the first half, the Bobcats earned a two-goal cushion over Flagler when McAlpin, with an assist from senior defender Erika Kolodin, sent a shot just under the Saints’ crossbar and gave GCSU a 2-0 lead.

Neither team was able to score in the second half and the final score remained 2-0 in favor of GCSU, giving the Bobcats their second shutout victory in a row.

“We’ve shutout some very offensively potent teams,” Favero said. “Flagler had a couple of very dangerous forwards and we shut them down.”

The Bobcats kept their winning streak going when they returned home this past Wednesday to take on the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

After a scoreless first half, the Bobcats broke through in the 61st minute, when an unassisted shot from Treat found its way into the Braves’ net and gave the Bobcats a 1-0 lead.

“I’ve been waiting on it,” Treat said. “It was good to put that one away when we needed to win this game.”

“We’ve gained a lot of confidence since we started scoring,” defender Tawny Moffat said. “It has been building since then and we finally clicked as a team.”

Even though numerous scoring attempts were made by both teams, GCSU held on to preserve a 1-0 win, giving them their third shutout victory in a row.

“Obviously the biggest thing is that we’ve scored six goals in the last three games, that’s two goals a game,” Favero said. “Before this stretch we were only scoring one goal a game so it’s been three huge results.”

With just three games remaining in the regular season, the Bobcats are back in action this Saturday as they take on highly-ranked Columbus State at home.

“We just need to fine tune a few things and talk about a few tactics to prepare for Columbus,” Favero said. “There’s nothing special we need to other than be ourselves, play to our potential, like we have the last three games and while it wasn’t perfect, it was a very good performance.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 23 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry