THOMASVILLE, Ga. - The Night Hawks faced a tough challenge as they clashed with No. 5 Tennessee Southern Firehawks at TU Soccer Complex on Saturday morning.
The game was competitive from the start with both teams trading shot opportunities,
Kaitlyn Herb broke out past two defenders for a chance to get on the board first but her shot was blocked. About a minute later, Thomas had another opening to score on a cross from
Sasha Manders to Herb, but it went high.
Finally, in the 26th minute, UT Southern scored to break the 0-0 tie. However, Manders broke through again, making a run, finding Herb who sent a shot in but it just bounced right off of the post. On the rebound
Madelyn Musgrove tried to chip it in over the keeper but it went high. In the 34rd minute, the Firehawk attack struck again, scoring to put the Night Hawks down 2-0 going into the locker room.
In the second half, UT Southern continued to lay on the attack, but
Emily Lamoreaux and the Thomas backline held strong, however, another goal in the 59th minute extended the deficit. But the Night Hawks refused to quit, upping the intensity with Manders taking back-to-back shots, and
Ali Baca making an attempt which was blocked by the Firehawks defenders, a couple of corners from
Elsebeth Andersen and
Jule Rohleder opened more opportunities for the attack as well. Following a throw-in by UT Southern, Musgrove poked the ball away and sent it over to Baca who found Herb who got on a run, speeding past several defenders to get to the keeper and this time Herb hit a bullseye to bring the deficit to two in the 71st minute. Be that as it may, Thomas could not find the back of the net after that, falling to UT Southern.
It was a benchmark game for the Night Hawk defense as Lamoreaux racked up 17 saves, several of which were difficult to get to. The backline of Andersen, Musgrove, Thorsteiná Árnádottir, Alicia Macleod, Mckenna Swartzman,
Jarica Lawrence,
Nike Henschel, and
Ruby Melis held a team that scored 8.13 goals per game to just three.
Moving into postseason play, The Night Hawks clinched the fifth seed in the SSAC Conference Tournament, they will once again travel to Mobile to face the fourth seed Rams in the quarterfinal on October 31 at 12:00pm.
