CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Striking quickly in the opening half, Lee University women's soccer team handed visiting University of Montevallo its first Gulf South Conference defeat on Wednesday evening at the Ray Conn Sports Complex. Two goals by Alaysia Nye in the first 29 minutes gave the Lady Flames a 2-0 advantage. Nora Burton came on in reserve and tallied at the 32:20 mark to put Lee on top 3-0 just 32 minutes into the contest.
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The Falcons scored their only goal a few minutes later, but this battle belonged to Lee in the 3-1 victory. Morgan Goehiring scored the unassisted goal for the Falcons on a free kick.
Montevallo had allowed only seven goals coming into the contest and had shutout eight opponents. The Falcons dropped to 7-1-1 in conference play and are 8-3-1 overall. Lee improved to 5-2-1 in the GSC and 7-2-2. The Lady Flames face another challenge on Saturday at 1 p.m. when they host Embry Riddle University, a powerful Sunshine State Conference team out of Daytona Beach, Fla.
Nye's first goal was assisted by Analisa Lujan. Her second goal came off the ever-present Grace Berry's assist. It was Nye's eighth and ninth goals of the year while Burton's score was her second and the assist was by Avery Sides.
Lee's defensive effort was led by Whitney Carrigan who played the entire 90 minutes and turned in a key save late in the contest. Sydney Clements, Berry and Sides joined goalkeeper Abby Whitcomb in playing the entire game. Coach Lee Hughes continued to call on his reserves and used 18 players in the victory.
The Lady Flames made the best of seven shots overall, placing four on target and three in the back of the net. Montevallo fired 15 shots overall but only five were on goal. Whitcomb had four saves and picked up the victory. The Falcons' Jolie Cazale was the losing keeper and had one save.
Both teams worked for four corner kicks apiece and the hard-played contest saw the visitors whistled for eight fouls and the Lady Flames five. There were no yellow cards issued.
Coach Lee Hughes' thoughts:
"We showed a lot of grit and desire tonight and I love how that's our identity. We are going to keep getting better and we have two days to do that before our next opponent."
