Soccer stuns No. 8 Armstrong
Bobcats use pair of first half goals to pull off major upset, crucial PBC victory
The GCSU soccer team extended its winning streak to four on Oct. 6 when they defeated Armstrong Atlantic 2-1 at home, pulling off a huge upset of the No. 8 team in the nation.
“I was absolutely satisfied with our performance,” Head Coach Hope Clark said. “If you get a win against the No. (8) team in the country, you’ve got to be pretty happy with your performance for sure.”
When the first half began, both teams came out on the field playing aggressively, but it was the Bobcats who first gained the lead when at 12:01 into the half, freshman midfielder Brittany Borror, with an assist from freshman midfielder Taylor Yee from the right side side, was able to send the ball high into the Pirates’ net and and tack the first goal of the game onto the scoreboard for GCSU. This was Borror’s third goal of the season.
When 22 minutes of the first half had passed, Armstrong Atlantic seized the opportunity to even the score when senior goalkeeper Mary Rob Plunkett came out from the goal to defend and the the Pirates’ Nadima Skeff placed an unassisted goal into the Bobcat’s open net to make it 1-1.
When less than ten minutes remained in the first half, senior defender/midfielder Kayla Emerson began driving the ball out from 40 yards out towards the Armstrong Atlantic goal and sent an unassisted shot into the back of the Pirates net in the minute 35 of the game to secure a 2-1 lead for the Bobcats and giving Emerson her second goal of the season.
“We played to the best of our abilities and I think we pulled it off pretty well,” Emerson said. “The energy from the bench as well as the energy from the field definitely helped to get the win.”
Neither team managed to score for the remainder of the first 45 minutes and the half ended with GCSU ahead of Armstrong Atlantic by one goal.
In the first half, the Pirates out-shot the Bobcats 11-7, and Armstrong Atlantic took more corner kicks than GCSU, taking four while the Bobcats took one.
In the GCSU goal for the first half, goalkeeper Plunkett managed to stop four Armstrong Atlantic shots from entering the Bobcat net and only allowing one shot go past her.
When the second half started, both teams continued to play aggressively.
Even though the Pirates continued to take more shots and corner kicks than GCSU in the second half, they were unsuccessful in placing any of their shots into the Bobcats’ net. As the second half raged on, GCSU continued to prove their defensive abilities by refusing to let Armstrong Atlantic tie up the score.
In the Bobcat’s net for the second half, Plunkett continued to stay defensively sharp as she prevented four shots from entering GCSU’s net and not allowing a single shot to slip past her.
“I think that we could have put a few more goals away so that we didn’t have to be so hectic in the end, but otherwise we kept it together and they didn’t score again,” Borror said. “Our greatest strength was the fact that once they scored, we didn’t let our heads down, we just came back and scored another one.”
In the second half, Armstrong Atlantic out-shot the Bobcats by ten shots, taking 13 while GCSU took only three, which totaled to the Pirates out-shooting the Bobcats 24-10 for the game.
In corner kicks, Armstrong Atlantic took five in the second half while GCSU took just three, which tallied up to the Pirates taking nine corner kicks in the entire game to the Bobcats’ four corner kicks.
This win not only gave GCSU a four-game winning steak. It also extended the Bobcats’ conference record to an undefeated 3-0 and giving them an overall record of 6-3 and a 6-1 on their home field.
The Bobcats are at home on Oct. 9 as they take on Clayton State at 3 p.m.
“We’re just going to continue working on what we’re working on, and that’s going to frame, a lot of transition work and good collective team defending and attacking,” Coach Clark said. “We’ve got to get a little rest right now, we’re a little banged up so we need to get some of the girls recovered and then get some of the ones that didn’t get into the game, we’ve got to get them playing. We’re going to settle down in the mind and get ourselves ready for Clayton State.”
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