While honoring Wounded Warriors and their families, the LU women’s soccer team continued their winning ways last week with a pair of wins. The Lancers (8-6-2 overall, 7-1-0 Big South) concluded their week of games with a 3-1 win over Charleston Southern on Saturday.
The beginning of the first half was intense as the Buccaneer midfielder Allison Lewis scored early. She put the ball in the lower right corner of the net past graduate goalkeeper Shelby Hall with 6:36 on the clock. This gave Charleston Southern a 1-0 lead over the Lancers.
Despite the angst, the early goal did not affect the Lancers. Longwood junior midfielder and forward Samantha Phillips put the Lancers on the scoreboard for a 1-1 tied game with an unassisted and beautiful goal from the top of the box to the “upper 90” past CSU goalkeeper, Dana McLaughlin.
Roughly two minutes later, Longwood senior midfielder and forward, Kelsey Pardue gave the Lancers a 2-1 lead, scoring from a give-and-go pass and assist, from stellar freshman Amanda Spencer.
With the Lancers dominating offensively and keeping the ball up the field, sophomore forward and midfielder Olivia Colella scored from a cross and assist, by freshman forward and midfielder, Gina D’Orazio, doubling Longwood’s lead.
The second half was a close and contested match-up. However, Longwood remained strong and played well throughout the final 45 minutes, giving them the 3-1 victory. The shot differential was also stark, going 24-6 in the Lancers’ favor. 15 of those shots were on net.
Elsewhere that week, the Lancers made a trip to Clinton, S.C. to play Presbyterian. Phillips. Pardue led the way offensively, each scoring once and helping Hall earn her seventh shutout of the season in 16 starts.
Spencer, a native of Gibsonia, Pa., leads the team in goals (eight) and points (19) and also is second in the team for assists with three. Her 1.19 points per game are a team-high as well. Pardue has seven goals and two assists, trailing only Spencer with 16 points.
D’Orazio has the most assists on the team with six. Spencer’s numbers for goals and points are also a conference-high for freshmen. Likewise, D’Orazio also leads the conference with her assist totals.
Longwood is currently second in the Big South, behind only Radford (12-1-1, 8-0-0 Big South).
LU will play at home again tonight against Campbell (5-10-0, 1-7-0 Big South) at 7 p.m. at the Athletics Complex in Farmville.
For this game, the women’s soccer team has partnered up with the National Foundation for Cancer Research for the Play4theCure: Cancer Awareness fundraising campaign.
The team’s game-worn jerseys have been up for auction on eBay since last Thursday, and the auction will continue until tomorrow at 1 p.m.
The team travels to UNC-Asheville (5-9-2, 1-5-2 Big South) for a 2 p.m. kickoff on Saturday, before returning home for senior night Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. against in-state arch-rival Liberty.
That Liberty game could, depending on results that happen across the league between now and then, have major implications for the seeding in the conference tournament. One of those implications potentially includes who ends up claiming the conference’s regular season title.
