Box Score
You might say that coach Matt Yelton and his Lee women's soccer team fired a shot across the bow of the Gulf South Conference on Saturday afternoon. Valdosta State came into the conference affair with an unbeaten record. The visitors left with the first blemish on their record.
Freshman Summer Lanter tallied her fifth goal of the season at the 14:49 mark and that turned out to be all the Lady Flames (6-2-0) needed in their convincing 3-0 victory. It was Lee's sixth straight victory. The Blazers dropped to 5-1-3, 3-1-3.
"I thought we were really good in the first 20 minutes," pointed out Yelton. "But they came back and played their way into the match. Even though we were up 1-0, they were always dangerous and came close several times right before the half."
The margin grew to 2-0 less than two minutes deep into the second half. Senior Leah Fortune fired a perfectly placed ball to Laura Thacker, who tallied her third goal of the season. "The goal right after halftime was huge," said Yelton. "Leah's awareness and delivery was exceptional and I thought Laura took her goal really nicely. You won't see a lot of teams score that quality of a goal and those two players make a big difference in the quality of what we do as a team."
The Lady Flames put a little extra icing on the victory cake in the 71st minute when senior Danielle Ciabattone picked up a pass from Lanter inside the box and tallied her second goal of the season. Alison Braun was also credited with an assist on the score.
"I thought today was as good a performance as one of my teams has put together in quite a while," admitted the highly successful Lee coach. "There were a few outstanding performances from individual players, but also we got a complete team performance from our squad today and I was incredibly impressed by the quality of play that we were able to put together.
"Our defenders were organized and showed a great deal of determination to keep Valdosta off the board today. The midfield worked and covered a lot of ground, and our forwards were always dangerous today."
Lee's marksmanship was excellent. It attempted 19 shots and put 13 on target, while the defense limited Valdosta to only 10 shots and three were on goal. Olivia Mills had 10 saves for the losers and Haley Gribler registered three for the Lady Flames.
"We knew that Valdosta would be a very tough matchup and that they would be a brave and hardworking team and that's exactly what we saw today," noted Yelton.
The coach went on to praise his entire club. "What I love about this team is they are such a blue-collar group. We do have some skill and flair, but we also have players that work hard for each other and put their best in every day. Again, I think the character of this group to respond to our early season start is showing through and I'm just honored to get to work with them each day. I don't know how the rest of the season will play out, but I do know that this team is dedicated to each other and representing our program well and making a positive impression on teams that we come up against in the GSC."
The Lady Flames face another major test next Friday when they travel to Pensacola, Florida to test their second straight GSC power in West Florida. The match is slated for an 8:30 p.m. start. The Lee men's squad will be pitted against West Florida in the 6 p.m. opener.
