EVANS, Ga. - Armstrong Atlantic State's Lianne Stricklen scored off a corner kick with only one second left, spoiling the Lander women's soccer team's valiant upset bid, 2-1, in the Peach Belt Conference Tournament semifinals Friday afternoon at Blanchard Woods Park outside Augusta, Ga.
Third-seeded Lander bows out of the tournament with an 11-4-2 record, one of the best records in program history, and now must wait to see if it can get into the NCAA National Tournament as an at-large team. No. 2 seed Armstrong Atlantic improved to 14-3-3 and advances to Sunday's PBC Tournament final Sunday at 1 p.m. against eighth-seed Montevallo, which upset top seed Columbus State last Tuesday and beat Georgia College & State University 2-1 in Friday's other semifinal.
Stricklen scored among a big mix in front of the goal just one second before time expired. Peach Belt Conference Women's Player of the Year Kristin Burton got credit for the assist.
The Lady Bearcats trailed almost the entire game until Kendall Couch tied the match at 1-all with only 8:27 left off an assist from Christina Barbour. It was Couch's third goal of the season.
Armstrong took an early lead when Burton scored an unassisted goal, her league-leading 27th of the season, at the 14:12 mark of the first half. The scored stayed 1-0 for the next 67 minutes until Lander, which lost 3-0 to Armstrong earlier this season, was able to tie it.
AASU out-shot the Lady Bearcats 19-10 and had an 8-5 edge in corner kicks. Lander's Chelsea Beetch, who is the reigning PBC Goalkeeper of the Week, had a big game with eight saves. Tracey Mitchell had four saves for the Pirates.
