COLUMBUS, Ga. - Bellarmine's Mary Beth Gorham took the ball at the 21, slid to the 13 and ripped what turned out to be the game-winning shot past Lee goalkeeper Haley Gribler. Lauren Holder was credited with the assist. The Lady Flames fought back in the second half, but the Knights walked away with the 1-0 victory.

The win moved 10th-ranked Bellarmine University to 2-0 in the CSU Collegiate Invitational and the Lady Flames dropped to 0-1-1. Bellarmine beat a good LMU club 3-1 in its opener while Lee battled to a scoreless draw with Wingate University. The Lady Flames will return home and play host to Lees-McRae College on Thursday evening at 7 p.m.

Coach Chris Hennessey's club was playing without last year's leading scorer and all-conference player Summer Lanter. Anna Leslie was also not available, while Lauren Peters played at about 60 percent, according to the coach.

"We controlled the action for the majority of the game," said Hennessey. "But right now we are showing no sense of urgency to push the pace. We are simply not pushing forward, but I think the frustrating thing is we played well enough to win the game."

However, the second-year Lee coach also pointed out that his Lady Flames played "miles better than they played in this tournament last year, after leaving Columbus State with two losses."

The Knights outshot the Lady Flames 11-4. Lee did not have a shot the entire first 45 but came back with four shots in a much more aggressive second half.

Lee did have three shots on goal, while Bellarmine registered four. Gribler had three saves in goal for the Lady Flames, while Hannah Poteet also had three saves for the winners.

With a couple of starters out of the lineup, Hennessey used a pair of freshmen in Carly Smoltz and Laila Dilts. "Both stepped up and did a nice job for us," praised Hennessey. "We will return to campus and go back to work on addressing some of the problems we had today. Hopefully, we will have Summer and Anna back in the lineup on Thursday."