SEMIFINAL SCORES
#4 Southeast Missouri 1, #1 Murray State 0
#2 SIUE 2, #3 UT Maritn 0
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 1, MURRAY STATE 0
MURRAY, Ky. -
No. 4 Southeast Missouri women's soccer (7-3-1) edged top-seeded Murray State (9-2-0), 1-0, Thursday afternoon at Cutchin Field to advance to the 2020-21 Ohio Valley Conference Championship Tournament Final on Saturday.
SEMO will face #2 SIUE (7-2-2) in the Championship Final on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Redhawks will compete in their first OVC Championship Tournament Final since 2015. The Cougars beat #3 UT Martin (6-4-1), 2-0, in the second semifinal Thursday.
The win over Murray State was the Redhawks first since Oct. 5, 2014 (2-1 Win in Cape Girardeau, Missouri). It was also the first victory over the Racers in Murray, Kentucky, since 2013 (1-0 Win on Sept. 27).
Emma Brune, a 2020-21 All-OVC Second Team and All-Newcomer Team honoree, provided the game-winner in the 12th minute of regulation.
Brune registered her second career goal off a feed from Morgan McCourt.
Brune, a Cape Girardeau, Missouri native, blasted a shot through traffic that deflected off a Racers defender before finding the back of the net.
She paced the Redhawks with two shots on goal Thursday.
Murray State outshot SEMO 13-5 in the opening half and concluded the game with a differential of 20-10. Shots on goal finished tied at seven apiece.
Goalkeeper Bailey Redden made seven saves for her sixth shutout in 2020-21 and seventh victory of the campaign.
Lauren Welker, Hannah Compernolle, Abby Tremain, McCourt and Nadiia Ivanchenko each tallied a shot on goal in the victory.
Brune, Emily Holten, Kiana Khedoo, Lexie Hacker and Natalie Jackson all competed in the full 90 minutes of regulation.
For Holten, it was her third time in 2020-21 playing the full 90 minutes. Khedoo made her fourth career start, and appeared in the full 90 minutes for the first time as a Redhawk.
Brune, Hacker and Jackson have all played in every minute (1,010) of action on the pitch this campaign.
Izzy Heckman, Lilly Strader and Symone Cooper each tallied four shots. Heckman, the 2020-21 OVC Defensive Player of the Year, and Strader both had two shots on target.
Chloe Barnthouse, a 2020-21 All-OVC First Team and All-Newcomer Team, added three shots while Lauren Payne and Rebecca Kubin each had two.
SIUE 2, UT MARTIN 0
MURRAY, Ky. - SIUE women's soccer needed just 64 seconds to take the lead in Thursday's Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Semifinal match, and the Cougars would never look back, claiming a 2-0 victory over No. 3 seed UT Martin.
It did not take long for the second-seeded Cougars to make their presence known, as OVC Forward of the Year MacKenzie Litzsinger took a pass from Maria Haro to net her seventh goal of the Spring 2021 campaign. The Red & White would hold that one-goal advantage for just over an hour, before Haro notched her second assist of the contest with a through pass to Lily Schnieders. Schnieders securely put the ball in the back of the net to score her sixth goal of the season, doubling the Cougar lead. SIUE goalkeeper Taylor Spiller and the Cougar backline secured their fifth clean sheet of the season, as Spiller recorded a season-high eight saves on the day.
Today's victory also marked the 100th win of SIUE Head Coach Derek Burton's career in Edwardsville, who is in his 13th season at the helm of the SIUE women's soccer program.
The Cougars will take Friday off, before returning to the pitch on Saturday afternoon for the OVC Championship Game against No. 4 seed Southeast Missouri. First kick is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Cutchin Field in Murray, Kentucky, and the match will be streamed live on ESPN+.