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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- On a night that featured a pair of upsets in the semifinal round of the 2017 Southern Conference Tournament, the second-seeded Samford Bulldogs suffered their first loss in exactly two months Friday, as the UNCG Spartans' Cienna Rideout scored a pair of goals in the final 29:03 of action, including the golden goal in the second minute of double overtime to claim the 2-1 win.
 
Rideout's second score of the evening lifted UNCG (10-7-3) to Sunday's championship match of the SoCon Tournament where the No. 3-seeded Spartans will square off against the No. 4-seeded Western Carolina Catamounts live on ESPN3 from the Samford Track and Soccer Stadium.
 
Earlier in the evening, Western Carolina set the evening's eerie tone with a decisive 2-0 shutout victory over the top-seeded Furman Paladins. Samford (13-6-2) and Furman both finished the regular season with identical 8-0-1 conference records, but the Paladins claimed the top seed in the 10-team competition due to goal differential.
 
Samford and UNCG played to a 0-0 draw at the half in a defensive struggle between two of the more physical teams in the SoCon.
 
In the second stanza, it proved to be the Bulldogs who struck first as two-time SoCon Player of the Year Jermaine Seoposenwe rifled home a shot from 30 yards out neatly into the top right corner of the net. The goal proved to be her team-leading 13^th of the season.
 
Unfortunately, Samford's lead didn't last long as Rideout received a pass on the left side of the box and fired a shot far post to even the score at 1-1. Rideout's equalizing goal occurred in the 73^rd minute, just 5:36 after Seoposenwe's tally.
 
Later in the second half, the Spartans' freshman goalkeeper Aiyanah Tyler-Cooper came up big in the 85th minute, punching a ball out of a crowded box from a Samford corner to help send the game to overtime.
 
Tyler-Cooper finished the contest with 11 saves on 14 Bulldog shot attempts.
 
Samford nearly ended the game just seconds into the first overtime, but the UNCG defense was able to clear the ball away from inside the 6-yard box, keeping the match alive.
 
Less than two minutes into the second overtime, UNCG's Emily Stump dribbled up the left side, swinging a cross into the box that Rideout would one-time into the top-right corner to give UNCG the 2-1 victory.
 
The win sent UNCG to the SoCon Championship final, where it will face Western Carolina on Sunday at 1 p.m. (CT). This is the first time since 2010 that UNCG has made it to the SoCon Championship final, setting up a rematch of the 2008 championship, which saw the Catamounts prevail on penalty kicks after a scoreless draw.
 
Friday's loss snapped Samford's 14-match undefeated streak. The Bulldogs finished the season with a 12-1-2 record since Sept. 3, which was their most recent setback of the 2017 campaign, a 1-0 loss at Kennesaw State.
 
Samford's defeat against UNCG also proved to be its first against a SoCon rival since Sept. 25, 2016, in a hard-fought 3-2 loss at Furman. The Bulldogs went 20 straight outings without losing to a conference opponent.
 
Samford's talent-laden senior class consisting of Abriella Argueta, Anna Maddox, Virginia McNeill, Kaitlyn Orman and Seoposenwe closed out their illustrious Bulldog careers with a 56-23-5 overall record, as well as a brilliant 31-4-1 mark in SoCon play. The Bulldogs' senior class owns the highest winning percentage of any class in school history.
 
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