GREENWOOD – It was Senior Day on Saturday afternoon at
Van Taylor Stadium for the Lander women's soccer team, whose match with Georgia College had Peach Belt Conference tournament implications. The Bearcats rose to the occasion and came away with a 1-0 win to close out the regular season and secured the No. 2 seed in next week's tournament.
The five seniors honored in a pregame ceremony were:
Katherine Blain,
Sille Hansen,
Lucy Bova,
Shae Baldwin and
Claire Regnault.
Another cause for celebration this afternoon is that the win gave Head Coach
Chris Ayer 97 PBC wins in his career – placing him second all-time.
Lander won its fifth game in a row while finishing the regular season with an 11-2-2 record, and an 8-1-1 mark in conference play. Those eight victories are the most conference wins for the Bearcats since 2013.
Sophia Trio scored the game's lone goal in the 22nd minute in rather incredible fashion.
Trio gathered a cross that was kicked out of the penalty area, dribbled to her right and crossed back to her left before lofting a left-footed shot to the top-left corner of the net out of the reach of the GCSU keeper.
It was one of five shots on target for the Blue and Gold, who outshot the Bobcats (7-6-3, 5-3-2 PBC) by a 15-9 tally.
Though not on target by way of the stat sheet,
Maddie Leber almost made it 2-0 shortly after in the 28th minute when her shot ricocheted off the crossbar.
Lander's defense held strong during the second half, and
Leah Hayes Coen stopped four shots in her fifth solo clean sheet this season; it was LU's seventh shutout this year.
The Bearcats will host a PBC quarterfinal match next Saturday, Nov. 1, against USC Beaufort at a time to be determined.
