Coastal Carolina Scores 1-0 Win Over Women?s Soccer

Women's Soccer VMIKeydets.com

Coastal Carolina Scores 1-0 Win Over Women?s Soccer

CONWAY, S.C.- For the second-straight meeting, a second half goal by Ashleigh Gunning proved the difference as Coastal Carolina scored a 1-0 win over VMI in a battle of the top two women's soccer teams in the Big South Conference on a wet night at the Coastal Carolina University Soccer Field.

With heavy rain falling throughout the contest, Coastal's Emily McColl slid a pass to Heather Haupt, who found Gunning in the game's 78th minute.  The fifth-year senior shot with her left foot from outside of the box and found the left corner of the goal to put the hosts in front 1-0.  In last season's Big South Championship Quarterfinals, Gunning connected in the 48th minute in a 1-0 Chanticleer victory over VMI.

The teams battled to a scoreless first half, despite Coastal Carolina out-shooting VMI by an 8-2 margin.  The Chanticleers (10-5, 6-2 Big South) kept up the pressure throughout the second half, forcing VMI (7-8-1, 4-2-1 Big South) goalkeeper Heidi Beemer to make five of her six saves in the final 45 minutes.  Chanticleer keeper Amy Haggard made four saves in preserving her fourth shutout of the season.

For the contest, Coastal Carolina held a 17-6 advantage in shots, however, the corner kick margin was only 4-3.  Each team was whistled for 15 fouls, while the only offsides whistle went against the hosts.

The loss brings to an end a brutal six-day stretch for VMI, who made their third separate trip to the Carolinas in less than a week for Big South Conference matches.  The Keydets scored road wins at High Point and UNC Asheville earlier on in the week.

The team must now return home for a non-conference match against Richmond on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at Patchin Field.

HEAD COACH BRYAN WILLIAMS- “Coastal Carolina is a very good team, and when you look at the statistics, the corner kicks (4-3) and shots on goal (7-4) show how close the match really was.  In the second half, they did a better job of closing us down offensively.  On the other end, with the exception of Gunning's goal, which was a mistake on our part, they didn't do anything that bad to us, we just couldn't get our attack going.  We just couldn't get the ball forward.  We kept trying to force the ball inside, which was not a good choice for us.  

On first-half opportunities
The first half was very good for us, we played very consistent.  They really didn't know what they had gotten into early on.  We had some great opportunities.  Megan Strand had a great corner kick (in the 12th minute), where Amanda headed the ball right to the keeper.  If she had pushed it to the right or to the left, we could've been up 1-0, but it was a great effort on her part.  

On defensive effort
On the back line, Audrey and Celine had great games.  Alexi had a super match also.  Heidi had a strong game, she had a couple of great saves, pushing the ball just over the crossbar.  She was a little screened on the goal, but again, we made a bad choice to allow that shot.

On the meaning of the game
I'm very proud of where we've come from.  In the past, games like this have been hard-fought, but it's an effort of ?how long can we keep them out' or ?how do we come back from what they've done to us'.  This is the first match against them where we were very offensive and created opportunities.  It came down to who would score that one goal to decide it, unfortunately they did with 13 minutes.

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Players Mentioned

Heidi Beemer

#1 Heidi Beemer

GK
5' 10"
Freshman
Megan Strand

#2 Megan Strand

MF
5' 4"
Junior

Players Mentioned

Heidi Beemer

#1 Heidi Beemer

5' 10"
Freshman
GK
Megan Strand

#2 Megan Strand

5' 4"
Junior
MF