The Lee women's soccer team put together another stellar defensive perfomance in shutting out visiting Auburn Montgomery 2-0, Thursday evening at the Lee Soccer Field.
The victory was the eighth straight shutout for the four-time NAIA national champions. The Lady Flames move to 10-1 overall and 7-0 in the Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC).
With the loss the WarHawks fall to 9-2-1 overall and 4-2 in SSAC play.
The two clubs played tight defensive for the first 30 minutes of the opening half. The Lady Flames broke the scoreless tie at the 30:56 mark on a header by Laura Thacker. Leah Fortune provided the assist off a corner kick.
In the second half Lee would add an insurance goal in the 77th minute as Fortune headed home a beautiful long cross from Amy Cochran.
The WarHawks had some good scoring opportunities throughout the match. Lee's senior midfielder Caroline Scales came up with a huge team save early in the second half to help preserve the shutout.
"Tonight was a very good performance of soccer by both teams, and I am really pleased with how we responded to some tough situations over the course of the game." remarked Coach Matt Yelton.
"We have several players that are nursing some injuries and a few others that have been really sick, but the character of this team to fight through adversity is really high, and they made me very proud tonight."
Both teams recorded 11 shots. Auburn Montgomery had five on goal while the Lady Flames had seven shots that were on frame.
Lee held the advantage in corner kicks registering five and scoring off of one of them. AUM recorded three corner kicks.
Guiding Lee's defense was senior goalkeeper Leah Wilson who had four saves in the shutout victory. Holly Clarke had five saves and allowed two goals in the defeat for the WarHawks.
Yelton spoke about his teams performance, particularly on the defensive end, "The quality of our defenders was outstanding in keeping a very good AUM team from scoring tonight. Our defense has been very strong all season, but I thought they played exceptionally well tonight. I don't really want to single out any one individual because tonights performance as a team was very good against an extremely well coached and disciplined team from AUM."
Yelton added, "The SSAC is a very tough league and we have put ourselves in a good position for the remainder of the season, but we have four more games to go and want to make sure we give every game our best effort."
The Lady Flames will continue to do battle in the tough SSAC on Saturday as they head to Montgomery, Ala. to tangle with Faulkner University. The match is set for a 5 p.m. start.
