Oct. 17, 2014

Printable Final Stats | Final Stats

BOCA RATON, Fla. – South Carolina (7-6, 2-3 Conference USA) completed an improbable comeback, scoring four unanswered goals to take a 4-3 win at Florida Atlantic (1-8-2, 1-3-1 C-USA) on Friday night at FAU Soccer Stadium.

Taking the only Gamecocks’ shot of overtime, senior Mahamoudou Kaba sent a strike on frame that FAU’s goalkeeper Theo Jamilloux got a hand on but not enough to deflect it from goal.

Redshirt freshman Mikkel Knudsen scored twice in the final 15 minutes of regulation to even the match at 3-3. In the 76th, he beat the FAU goalkeeper, shooting into the open goal after getting behind him. In the 83rd, his strike from the right side beat the Owls’ netminder to his left, finding the goal. He shot again in the 86th, but this time the keeper made the save.

The Gamecocks’ comeback started when sophomore Eli Dent headed home a goal in the 61st minute.

FAU’s two first-half goals came in a six-minute span. Kevin Byrne headed home the first in the 29th, putting in Deniz Bozkurt’s corner kick. Buzkurt made it 2-0 with his 35th-minute score.

The Owls pushed the lead to 3-0 on Bozkurt’s second goal, as he punched in the rebound from Daniel Montoya’s shot in the 49th.

Game Changer:
The never-say-die attitude came back in south Florida again, with four unanswered goals giving the Gamecocks the win.

Key Stat:
Knudsen tallied his first two-goal game in his South Carolina career, shooting six times, also a career high.

Notables:

• South Carolina took more shots (15-9) and corner kicks (6-4) in the contest.
• Junior Jeffrey Torda shot four times, twice on goal.
• Sophomore Marco Velez made two saves in the contest, while Jamilloux had three in the loss.

Quotable:
South Carolina Head Coach Mark Berson
Four unanswered goals are outstanding, especially on the road in conference play. This group never quit. They fought to the end, and I’m tremendously proud of them. I’m not sure how many Houdini acts we can pull off this year, but tonight we did.

Up Next:
South Carolina opens its final week of home matches with Tuesday’s non-conference tilt against NC State at 7 p.m. EDT.