JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Oct. 26, 2025) - Clenched teeth. Skyward eyes. Choice words. Months of frustration all fell to the wayside for Grace Eatz in a seven-minute span on Sunday.
In her final home game, the senior from Roswell, Georgia, scored in the 20th and 27th minutes to push the ETSU women's soccer team to a convincing 3-0 over VMI at Summers-Taylor Stadium.
The Buccaneers (9-3-6, 4-1-4) had to frustrate a few early looks from the Keydets (2-16-1, 0-9-0) as Addison Yelton was forced into two saves inside the first ten minutes, but they began to ask questions of the VMI back line with long aerial passes for their forwards to run onto. One such pass from Georgia Shields landed at the feet of Eatz as she raced past the defense and had plenty of time to pick her shot one-on-one with VMI keeper Maren Ryberg. She baited the keeper out to the penalty spot, then dragged the ball to her right and blasted into an open goal to score her first of 2025 and 10th of her career on her 33rd shot of the season.
She added to it minutes later when Jada Cooper pulled multiple defenders with her to the end line outside the right goal post, buying time for supporting players to arrive. She slipped a pass out to Reagan Fitzgerald who, after ruling out a shot herself, saw Eatz out of the corner of her eye running full speed down the middle of the box and slid the ball to her, where the senior put it in the back left corner for her second collegiate brace.
The Bucs added one more for insurance in the 79th, when a Ruby Teixeira corner connected with a Fitzgerald header that went flying off the crossbar straight into the path of Ava Duffey, where the sophomore redirected the rebound into the back of the net for her third goal of the season.
The Bucs outshot the Keydets by a whopping 19-3 margin, with seven shots on goal to just two for VMI. The Keydets registered all of their shots in the first 30 minutes of play. The two early saves stood as all that was required of Yelton, who tied ETSU's single season record with her eighth shutout, matching Ashton Blair's award-winning campaign from 2023.
The win assures the Buccaneers the number three seed in the 2025 SoCon Women's Soccer Championship, their second top three finish in three seasons. They will face sixth-seeded Mercer in Cullowhee, North Carolina, on Halloween at a time to be announced.
For more information on ETSU women's soccer, go to ETSUBucs.com.
