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Women’s soccer comes up big in Lexington in overtime 10/30/2004 The Vanderbilt women’s soccer team traveled to Lexington today and came up with a big overtime win against the Kentucky Wildcats. “I am so proud of the team effort tonight, said Head Coach Ronnie Coveleskie Hill. “They fought hard under very difficult and emotional situations. It was Kentucky’s senior night and they were playing for a bid to the SEC tournament. They had an amazing amount of emotion invested in this game.” The Dores are now 6-6-5 overall and 5-2-4 in the SEC. This loss brings Kentucky to 6-11-1 overall and 3-7-1 in the SEC. This game was also the last chance for Kentucky to make it in to the SEC tournament, which they will most likely not make. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Vanderbilt goals were scored by Lauren Mitchell, Sarah Dennis and Alexis Yoculan. Alexis Yoculan‘s overtime goal won the game for the Dores just four minutes into the overtime period. All Commodore goals were unassisted which shows great drive for the players who scored them. “I believe that a sign of a team in a good place mentally is how they fight and perform under pressure,” said Hill. “Today, we were down a goal twice throughout the match–and we found a way to equalize in a timely manner.” Commodore goal keeper Tyler Griffin registered three saves for Vanderbilt while Kentucky’s Liz Butler had two saves for the Wildcats. Vanderbilt was outshot by Kentucky 16-8 but was still able to make the great shots to win the game. The first half was action packed with both teams scoring two goals. The second half was back and forth with just one shot from Vanderbilt and six from Kentucky. Although the Wildcats registered six shots in the second half, Griffin made no saves. The Commodores should be very pleased with this game as they have struggled to win overtime games this season. The Dores have played in five overtime games, winning just two of those games. “As a team, we talked about maintaining our composure and to remain focused on our game and our goal,” said Hill. “Our goal being to remain as the fourth seeded team at the SEC tournament next week. This game against Kentucky meant so much to us as a team. We have been 0-5 against Kentucky in the past five years. And our goal as a team was to try to break that streak.” Vanderbilt clinched their berth to the SEC tournament earlier this week but this win puts the exclamation point on the fact that they deserve to be there. Brackets for the tournament will be announced early next week. Check vucommodores.com for the Dores’ match-ups for next week’s tournament. |
