Sept. 23, 2005
Columbia, S.C. – A goal from Kristin Stewart at 61:24 was enough to lift Auburn to a 1-0 victory over South Carolina on Friday evening on opening night in SEC women’s soccer action. Auburn is 2-5-1 and 1-0 in the conference with South Carolina now 4-4 and 0-1 in conference play. Carolina returns to action on Sunday hosting Alabama at 2 p.m. at Stone Stadium. Live audio and gametracker stats will be available at uscsports.com.
“I thought we had better opportunities in the match and more dangerous ones but we couldn’t find a way to finish,” said USC head coach Shelley Smith. “We gave up a bad goal and their most dangerous opportunity came off a deflection of our player. We have to finish our chances so teams don’t do this to us.”
South Carolina had an 8-6 advantage in shots in the first half as well as five corner kicks but couldn’t put a goal in the back of the net. M.A. Foster and Stacey Zelek had shots miss just wide of the goal with Darcel Mollon also putting a shot on net but denied by Auburn keeper Anna Fiser.
The Tigers would get their goal from Stewart in the second half of play. Stewart took advantage of a misclear and a deflection to knock a shot from inside the 18 and past USC goalkeeper Laura Armstrong to give the Tigers a one-goal lead. Carolina’s best chance in the second half came from Amanda Thurber, who chipped a ball over Fiser but the shot went off the crossbar denying the equalizer for USC.
“I think we created well but we didn’t play as well in the second half as we did in the first half,” said Smith. “You have to stick with the game plan and I don’t think we did that and it didn’t help us in the second half with our attack.”
South Carolina finished the match with an 11-10 advantage in shots with Erin Sullivan coming up with two for Carolina. Leah Blayney had four shots on goal to lead the Tiger attack. Armstrong made four saves in goal with Fiser making two for Auburn. The loss for USC is their first this season at home in Stone Stadium.
