KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Continuing an impressive run of shutouts, the Lee women's soccer team advanced to the finals of the NCCAA Women's National Championship with a 3-0 victory over Campbellsville University on Friday afternoon at the Austin-Tindall Soccer Complex.

Playing on a pitch that was extremely wet from rain showers during the afternoon, the Lady Flames (15-4-1) posted their sixth straight shutout of the season and have outscored opponents in the tournament 7-0.

Coach Matt Yelton expects a much tougher challenge on Saturday afternoon at 5:45 when his team battles Grace College (Ind.), a 3-0 winner over Houghton College.
"Grace is a very good team that plays an attractive brand of possession-oriented soccer," said Yelton. "They've played well all tournament and have a host of good players on their team. It will be a difficult matchup for us tomorrow but I know our team will play with as much effort as we can muster at this point."

Shooting for a first NCCAA national title to go along with their four straight NAIA championships, the Lady Flames put three goals on the board in the opening half and allowed Yelton to insert plenty of reserves during two-thirds of the contest.

"We again got multiple players to step up and produce quality performances and we have been able to go deep into our roster all tournament," noted the Lee coach. "That's a sign of the improvement of this team over the course of the year and we now find ourselves competing to win a national championship tomorrow"

Kinsey Cichowitz tallied the first goal in the 21^st minute. Some five minutes later, Kathryn Healy countered with the second goal and finally freshman Meagan Newman stepped up to score the final tally of the match in the 30^th minute off a corner kick by Cichowitz.

The Lady Flames had several other scoring opportunities that were saved by Campbellsville goalkeeper Amanda Howard (eight saves). All totaled Lee had 18 shots and 11 were on goal. The Tigers were only able to fire off 11 shots against the Lady Flames rugged defense and five were on target.

Marbel Egwuenu was outstanding in goal coming up with three key saves in the final 15 minutes. She finished the afternoon with five saves in picking up the win.

"It's been a very positive experience coaching this team and to see where we are today compared to August has been a remarkable journey that we hopefully can take the last big step tomorrow," said Yelton as he praised his current squad.

"We aren't as healthy as I would like for us to be going into a final, but at this point in the season, very few teams are. We will tape our kids up as best we can and just go out and try to win a title," the coach concluded.