Soccer wins on road, falls in overtime at home

The women’s soccer team fought to improve its record by beating Georgia Southwestern 2-0 but lost in overtime 1-0 against Lander University.

The team is 3-6 overall and has a 2-1 record in the Peach Belt Conference. Freshman goalie Taylor Cornelius and junior defender Jamie Colcord both earned PBC Player of the Week honors, and freshman midfielder Ashley Veilleux is the current Bobcat Player of the Week.

“There’s no weak link on this team,” freshman goalie Cornelius said.

The Bobcats’ 2-0 victory proved themselves as a threat in the PBC.

“I thought our possession was very good,” Head Coach Hope Clark said. “The girls looked comfortable on the ball, but our speed of play was slower and we needed to be moving quicker in our distribution and movement off the ball.”

Feeling more comfortable after three starts in goal was Cornelius.

“I’ve had to follow in my seniors’ footsteps, watching them and learning from them,” Cornelius said.

Cornelius, the youngest player on the team, earned her second victory and first shutout allowing zero goals out of the four Southwestern shots.

“She’s stepping up every day in practice along with the other goalkeepers,” Clark said. “She’s consistently showing well in practice and she has some tools right now that are beneficial for us and strong.”

Cornelius saw little action in the box, but still was an impact.

“It feels awesome, we’re much improved,” Cornelius said. “Even though we have a bunch of different freshman playing and some seniors, it’s really hard to mesh us all together, but it works so well and we really work as a team.”

Freshman Abby Dalton struck first for GC in the 30th minute, after she was fouled in the box. The second goal of her college career, took the Bobcats into halftime up 1-0. Barely five minutes into the second half, senior Erica Padula headed a goal kick back to the box to find Dalton. Dalton took a few touches and crossed the ball into a sliding Padula who netted her first goal as a Bobcat and the second for GC.

“Our whole team has completely started working on offense,” Padula said. “We practiced finishing ridiculously last week and we just keep shooting and up our shot average every game.”

GC dominated again in shot differential at 24-4 and earned their first conference road victory.

On Sept. 28 the battle in Greenwood, S.C. against Lander University was lost 1-0 in overtime and the shot differential 19-7. GC did not have one player take more than one shot and only two of their seven shots were on target. Five minutes into overtime, Lander’s Sarah Piechocki made the only goal of the game, a penalty kick to end the game. The women play Clayton State on Saturday, Oct. 1, in another PBC showdown.

Posted by Taylor Lamb on Sep 29 2011. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.