By: by Matthew Farhadi
Box Score
FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Kennesaw State Owls women’s soccer team fell in a hard-fought Atlantic Sun Conference road match to the first-place Florida Gulf Coast Eagles, 1-0, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the FGCU Soccer Complex.
The win improves the Eagles to 7-4-1 (4-0-1 A-Sun) on the year, while the loss drops the Owls to 6-6-1 (3-3-0 A-Sun) for the season.
Defense was the name of the game in the first half, as the Owls and Eagles were both very solid on their own ends of the field, limiting quality scoring chances to a minimum.
The Owls best chance of the first half came in the 32nd minute, as junior
Shelby Cosby blew past a FGCU defender down the left side and blasted a shot that went just wide of the goal to keep the game scoreless.
Florida Gulf Coast broke the scoreless tie in the 52nd minute of the match on a corner kick. Brittany Burt swung the ball into the box that eluded the grasp of Kennesaw State goalkeeper
Melissa Hutto, and was deflected into the back of the net by Lindsay Haw to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.
The Eagles defense continued to frustrate the Owls throughout the second half as the Black and Gold couldn’t get anything going offensively.
Kennesaw State nearly tied the game in the 77th minute of the match when junior
Alyssa Mahan took a shot at FGCU goalkeeper Stephanie Powers. Powers lost the handle on the ball and freshman
Ashley Gray collided with her attempting to score the game-tying goal, but Powers managed to re-gain control of the ball just in time to give the Eagles the win.
Owls head coach Rob King was pleased with the team’s effort, and he knows that the Sunshine State trip is always a difficult one.
“Overall, I was pleased with our effort today as it was a hard fought match,” King said. “This has been a very difficult trip, but we need to recover quickly and get ready for our next match against Campbell.”
Florida Gulf Coast outshot the Owls 13-5. The Black and Gold were led offensively by junior
Brittany Vining who had two shots, and Hutto made six saves in the losing effort.
The Owls will have a quick turnaround, as they will head back out on the road to take on Campbell in Buies Creek, N.C. on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.
