THURSDAY'S SCORES
@Austin Peay 3, Eastern Illinois 0
@Tennessee Tech 2, Murray State 2 (2OT)
Belmont 1, @UT Maritn 0
@SIUE 3, Southeast Missouri 1
AUSTIN PEAY 3, EASTERN ILLINOIS 0
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - Eastern Illinois women's soccer lost is final regular season match 3-0 on Thursday evening at Austin Peay.
The Panthers will now have to wait until Sunday afternoon to see if they will advance to this year's OVC Tournament. EIU will need Thursday's opponent, APSU, to either lose or tie in their Sunday match at Murray State.
On Thursday evening Austin Peay scored its first goal in the 12th minute on an Alex Baumgardt goal.
APSU added a second goal in the 38th minute to lead 2-0 as Haley Patterson scored.
The Panthers would play the final 17 minutes a player down and APSU tacked on one final goal in the 86th minute by Tori Case.
EIU had 11 shots in the match with five of them on goal. Niondina Nystrom had six shots including two on goal to lead EIU. Nicoletta Anuci, Sarah Hagg and Kenzie Balcerak added the other shots on goal for EIU.
TENNESSEE TECH 2, MURRAY STATE 2
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - A thriller in every sense of the word went down Thursday night at Tech Soccer Field, as the Tennessee Tech soccer team played Murray State to a 2-2 draw in a back-and-forth sort of tilt in TTU's home regular-season finale.
The draw stretches Tech's undefeated stretch to five consecutive, the longest since TTU's program-record nine-match unblemished streak to close out the 2017 regular season. The Golden Eagles are now 3-0-2 since the calendar flipped to the month of October.
Thursday's 2-2 deadlock also featured a piece of school history behind Tech's now program-record eighth overtime match of the season, one more than the 2015, 2009 and 2006 version of the Golden Eagles that played seven OT contests during their respective campaigns.
Early goals to begin each half was the name of the game in the captivating contest, with all four scores occurring within the first 11 minutes of each stanza. Chloe Smith continued her recent surge by unwrapping the scoring less than four minutes into the affair thanks to an unassisted goal that saw the Cincinnati, Ohio product gather in a deflection in the box, before ripping one into the back of the net for her third goal of the season that put Tech (4-5-3, 3-2-2 OVC) ahead 1-0.
TTU's lead would prove to be short lived though, as 65 seconds later Rebecca Kubin provided the equalized with her third goal of the year. The Murray State 5-foot-3 forward took a feed from Hailey Cole and weaved through TTU's defense, before lining one up inside the box and drilling it home to start the match fresh at 1-1. Cole collected an assist on the game-tying score.
The two teams flipped the script in the second half in a period that saw the Racers (8-7-1, 3-3-1) strike first early in the frame. Just like Smith in the first, Murray's Gracey Park opened the scoring less than four minutes into the half with a top-shelf goal on a pass from Riley Johnson, who registered an assist on the play.
Not to be deterred, the Golden Eagles responded mere minutes later, courtesy of a Meredith Nye net-finder in the 56th minute for her second goal of the season and third of her career. The equalizing score came off a Chloe Smith corner that ended up with Nye powering one in between the pipes to knot the dramatic affair at 2-2. Smith's set-piece serve gave the 5-foot-8 junior her fourth assist of the year for a three-point evening.
Smith's big night continued a trend that has now featured three goals and three assists over her last five matches.
Deadlocked 2-2 in overtime, Isabelle Austin kept the match preserved with a clutch save in the waning moments of the final extra session. With just over a minute remaining, Rebecca Kubin found herself point blank with the Tech keeper, but Kubin's blast was halted on a reaction stop by Austin that allowed the contest to continue into a second overtime.
The Golden Eagles controlled the second overtime thanks to a 4-1 shot discrepancy, but neither side was unable to put one home. Overall, Tech notched a season-high 19 shots, which included eight on-goal for the second most in a match this year. Smith paced the purple and gold with a season-high tying six shots, tied for the most in a match by any OVC player this year.
The Racers took 19 shots as well and were led by Kubin's five attempts.
Austin picked up a season-best eight saves, seven of which occurred after intermission. Jenna Villacres collected three saves over the course of 110 minutes.
BELMONT 1, UT MARTIN 0
MARTIN, Tenn. - Belmont University Women's Soccer defeats University of Tennessee Martin 1-0 in an exciting match. The Bruins now tie with UT Martin for first place in the Ohio Valley Conference. The sole goal of the match was scored by Maci Pekmezian off of a penalty kick, her fourth goal on the season and fourth gamewinning goal for the Bruins.
More to come...
SIUE 3, SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 1
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Rivalry games are always exciting - rivalry games with major postseason implications serve to heighten the tension even more. In front of the largest home crowd in more than five years, SIUE women's soccer firmly positioned themselves for strong postseason seeding with a 3-1 victory over Southeast Missouri on Thursday night.
The Cougars started off the scoring in the sixth minute, as Maria Haro took a picture-perfect pass from MacKenzie Litzsinger to net her fifth of the season and give the home side a 1-0 lead. SIUE would hold that lead until the 16th minute, when a SEMO forward slotted the ball past Jensen Schoch to level the score. The first half looked destined to end with a 1-1 draw, but true freshman Kaitlyn Nichols notched her third goal of the season with just seven seconds left in the half and give the Cougars a 2-1 advantage heading into the break. The Cougars and Redhawks would exchange possession for much of the second half, but Kayla Klipsch netted the insurance goal in the 84th minute to secure the SIUE victory.
"I'm extremely proud of the result tonight," said SIUE Head Coach Derek Burton following the match. "We knew it was going to be a good battle - it always is with SEMO, we've become rivals. We both have a lot to play for as you would expect of the last couple games of the conference season. We knew it was going to be tough and I'm extremely proud to come out on top."
Taylor Dolt dished a career-high two assists in the contest, while a trio of Cougars put a team-best three shots on goal in the contest - Haro, Andrea Frerker, and Lily Schnieders. Schoch stood between the sticks for the full 90 minutes, recording a save and helping the SIUE defense allow just five total shots.