Box Score Box ScoreBIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- At exactly the 3:16 mark in overtime, the Cincinnati Bearcats' Emily Elsbrock scored the game-winning goal to lift her squad to a 2-1 victory Friday against the Samford Bulldogs in a season-opening contest held at the Samford Track and Soccer Stadium.
"It's always tough to lose in overtime, but I thought our players really battled hard tonight," said Samford head coach
Todd Yelton. "We didn't handle the physical side of the match very well and I have to take my hat off to Cincinnati. They were very committed and they punished us for the mistakes that we made."
With Friday's last-second setback,
Samford (0-1) suffered its first defeat at home since Oct. 18, 2013, when the Bulldogs were upset by The Citadel, 3-2.
Last season, Samford finished its 2013 campaign with a brilliant 9-1-1 home record.
The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 1-0 lead Friday as sophomore forward
Malcanisha Kelley tallied the ninth goal of her young, up-and-coming career. Samford's talented native of Childersburg has already scored nine goals in only 22 career matches.
On Friday's score, Kelley was set up beautifully by South African phenom
Jermaine Seoposenwe, who crossed it perfectly from left to right in front of the goal. The play was started as Seoposenwe gathered a forwarding pass from
Olivia Cole on the left flank, dribbled at the keeper tantalizingly for 15 yards and then sent the ball over to a wide open Kelley.
Kelley then fired the shot into the right corner of the net from 10 yards out to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 advantage in the 14
th minute of action.
"It was a great goal for us to open the match," Yelton said. "We were able to get ahead on a counter, Jermaine just played in a pretty ball and Mac (Malcanisha) finished it off."
Samford's opening goal seemed to wake up the traveling Bearcats as they picked up the pressure and looked to take advantage of a counter-attack.
At 20:14,
Cincinnati's (1-0) strategy paid off as the Bearcats' Jaycie Brown gathered an errant Samford pass and sent it just ahead of an offside to Laura Rose in the middle of the field. Rose, with a one-on-one with the Bulldogs' goalkeeper
Anna Maddox was able to find the right corner of the net.
Rose's first goal of the season tied the match at 1-1 in the 21
st minute of play.
"After we scored our first goal, I think they became much more direct at that point," Yelton said. "They put some players at the top that had some pace and we didn't really handle it that well. I thought that in the second half, we did much better and most of the match was played in our attacking area. We just didn't take advantage and create many scoring opportunities and that's a credit to Cincinnati."
Following the early fireworks from both offenses, the teams seemed to settle into a steady pace of play and registered few true scoring chances for the remainder of regulation.
"I thought we hit a little bit of a lull there at the 25-minute mark," said Yelton. "That's when Cincinnati started being the better side at that point in time, but it's a long season and this is just the first of a lot of games. Hopefully, we can just learn from this experience and get better."
In overtime, Samford never really found an opportunity to get on track defensively before Katy Couperus quickly sent a timely forwarding pass ahead to Elsbrock on the left sideline. Elsbrock was then able to take a few strides to her right and lifted the ball into the top left corner of the goal for the game-winning score.
"Right now, we just need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get ready for another tough match at South Carolina on Sunday," said Yelton.
The Samford University soccer team will next be in action Sunday at 5 p.m. (CDT) as the Bulldogs travel to Columbia, S.C., for a huge early-season showdown against the South Carolina Gamecocks to be held at the Eugene E. Stone III Stadum.
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