VIDEO: Richard Moodie Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn – Alex Brandan (Knoxville, Tenn.) headed in the golden goal in the 94th minute to break a scoreless tie against the Anderson (S.C.) Trojans and give the Carson-Newman Eagles a 1-0 victory on Saturday evening at McCown Field in Jefferson City, Tennessee.
The Eagles improve to 8-2 on the season and now have 12 points in the SAC with a 4-1 record. Anderson falls to 6-3 and 3-2 in the SAC.
"I thought our team did a great job of being patient and allowing the flow of the game to happen," Soccer Coach Richard Moodie said. "They knew what they had to do facing a conference rival. The girls played hard and knew they had to get across the finish line and the quality from Holly Talbut-Smith and Alex Brandan paid off."
After 90 minutes that did not lack drama or opportunity, only goals, the teams began what would be a short overtime period. A C-N throw came to Ashley Hickman (Knoxville, Tenn.) who found Holly Talbut-Smith (Crawley, England) with a cross-field pass near the corner flag on the right side. Talbut-Smith sent a cross into the box and Brandan was waiting, directing the ball on target for the game-winner.
Both teams had chances to get on the board in regulation, but were unable to take advantage. The Trojans opened the match by quickly putting pressure on the Eagles, but Jacqueline Burns (Cookstown, Northern Ireland) made a pair of saves to keep the match scoreless. The Eagles then put pressure on goalie Bianca Porras, but shots by Julianne Herrity (Donegal, Ireland) and Varin Ness (Sogndal, Norway) sailed wide. An offside penalty also cost the Eagles the lead as Bailey Williams (Powell, Tenn.) put away a chance, but the flag was up and, thus, the score was waived off. Each keeper grabbed two saves for the half.
In the second half, Carson-Newman dominated the pace of play, as the Trojans managed just four shots, while the Eagles piled up 13. In the 69th minute, Allie-Anne Blackburn (Franklin, Tenn.) sent in a header that looked like it would break the tie, but it hit the crossbar and the game stayed scoreless. Blackburn's chance was one of 26 shots C-N had for the match, compared to only seven for their opponents.
Anderson's Tina Shakes had the final chance in regulation as, with under a minute left, a long ball found her on the Carson-Newman side of the field. Her shot from 20 yards out on the right side was knocked away by a diving Burns, preserving the deadlock and sending the match to overtime. That set the stage for Alex Brandan.
The second of three straight home games for the Eagles is on Wednesday as they host King (Tenn.) at 5pm. The match will be broadcast live on cneagles.com/live and Mark Inserra will have the call. Live stats will also be available and a recap will be published postgame.
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