Friday, October 01, 2004

STATESBORO, Ga. (Oct. 1, 2004) - Georgia Southern's Jenni Boykin's goal just 1:24 into the first overtime proved to be the game winner as Georgia Southern defeated East Tennessee State 2-1 in Southern Conference women's soccer action at Eagle Field Friday afternoon.

            Boykin took a pass from Colleen Znosko and blasted the ball past diving Buc goalie Sarah Prendergast (Palm Bay, Fla.) and into the left corner of the net to propel the Eagles (3-4-1, 1-1-0) to victory.

            East Tennessee State (3-4-1, 0-1-1) opened the scoring in the first half with a Rebecca Murray (Franklin, Tenn.) score. During the 10th minute of play, Erin Ashton (New Bern, N.C.) won a struggle for the ball at midfield and sent a pass to Murray down the right sideline. Murray picked up the pass and dribbled to 20 feet, where she sent a shot to the left corner for her third score of the season.

            The two teams played a defensive game for the next 73 minutes as they combined for just three first half shots. Trailing 1-0 with less than 10 minutes to play, Georgia Southern pulled keeper Megan Macdonald out of goal, inserting forward Katy Znosko in her place, and moved Macdonald to a forward position. Upon reentering the game as a forward, Macdonald picked up a loose ball and sent it ahead to Boykin, who fed Colleen Znosko down the right sideline. Znosko blasted a shot from 30 yards over the head of Prendergast to even the game at 1-1 at the 84:07 mark.

            The Eagles owned a 10-4 advantage in shots on the game as Prendergast made four saves for the Bucs and Macdonald one for the Eagles.