Box Score
Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Samford University soccer team remained undefeated at home Thursday as the Bulldogs posted a 2-1 Southern Conference victory against a tough, scrappy Wofford Terriers' squad that entered the contest riding a five-match winning streak. Samford improved to 6-0-1 at the Samford Track and Stadium with the triumph.
 
"A win is a win and we always want as many as those as we can get," said Samford head coach Todd Yelton. "We always want to get three points every time that we step out onto the pitch. I was very impressed with Wofford tonight. I thought that (Head Coach) Amy (Kiah) had a great game plan that definitely made it hard on us. They were really good on the attack and it was a hard-fought match."
 
With Thursday's win, Samford (8-2-1, 2-0-1 SoCon) improved to 5-0-3 all-time against Wofford (5-3-1, 1-1-0 SoCon) and remained undefeated versus the Terriers.
 
The Bulldogs victory also set up a huge SoCon showdown Sunday at Furman. The Paladins, who currently own a 2-0 conference record this season, were preseason picked first in the league's standings, while Samford garnered the second-place position. Sunday's key SoCon matchup will begin at 1 p.m. (CDT) in Greenville, S.C.
 
"Furman has already done extremely well this season and (Stephanie) DeVita is certainly one of the best players in the Southeast, if not the country," Yelton said. "It's going to be a big challenge for us, and it seems like something crazy always happens when we get together with Furman. It's generally never boring and this year's match is going to be as big as ever."
 
On Thursday, Samford received goals from true freshman Taylor Borman and senior midfielder Trine Taule en route to its 2-1 victory over Wofford.
 
Borman, the Bulldogs' highly-touted native of Georgetown, Ky., scored the opening goal of the match in the 20^th minute to give Samford an early 1-0 lead.
 
On Borman's score, which proved to be the first of her young collegiate career, fellow freshman Anna Allen sent a chest-high crossing pass from left to right in the box. Borman, who was positioned nicely to the left of Wofford goalkeeper Kimberly Cohn, headed Allen's perfectly-placed pass into the left-hand corner of the net for the goal.
 
The assist was Allen's third of the season.
 
The Terriers evened the score at 1-1 just 2:19 before halftime when Faith Lifer tallied her first goal of the season on an assist from Maggie Bosley. The goal came off a free kick from just outside of Samford's 18-yard box.
 
"Obviously, we weren't very happy about giving up the goal right before half, but we were still tied, 1-1, and we weren't chasing the game at that point," Yelton said. "We were still in a good spot and we'd been playing some good soccer. I told them at the half to just keep battling, keep fighting and eventually things would go our way."
 
Samford outshot Wofford, 24-8, on Thursday, but the Bulldogs' most important shot of the night came off the head of Taule in the 70^th minute.
 
With the score still deadlocked at 1-1, Samford registered one of its six corner kicks from the right side of the field where Johnson sent a hooking crossing pass into the box. On the ideal pass, Taule broke brilliantly to her right and headed home the game-winner into the right corner of the net.
 
"Set-piece goals are always huge and Trine's tonight was very big for us," said Yelton. "We were able to capitalize and scored a good goal off a corner and it definitely made our life a lot easier."
 
Taule's decisive goal came at exactly 69:02 into the match and gave Samford its key 2-1 advantage. The score proved to be Taule's fifth of the season and the 21^st of her illustrious career. With eight matches remaining in the regular-season, the Bulldogs' impressive senior from Frekhaug, Norway, finds herself just five goals behind former Samford-great Marian Wagner for the all-time school record.
 
With Johnson's assist on Taule's game-winner, she notched her team-high fourth of the 2013 campaign.
 
Wofford's Cohn registered a season-high 12 saves Thursday and faced a barrage of 24 shot attempts from Samford.  The Bulldogs' Melissa Montgomery earned her second victory of the season and finished the night with three critical stops.
 
The Samford University soccer team will next be in action Sunday at 1 p.m. (CDT) as the Bulldogs travel to Greenville, S.C., for a huge SoCon matchup against the conference's preseason-favorite Furman Paladins. Sunday's showdown will be held at Furman's Eugene E. Stone, III Stadium (3,000).
 
For the most up-to-date information on Samford soccer please follow @Samford_Sports and @SamfordSoccer on Twitter.

Box Score