PINE BLUFF, AR – The Lady Lions overall record is now 9-5-0 after a close loss to the Lady Skyhawks of the University of Tennessee – Martin.
The Lady Lions went down a goal at the 35th minute off a UT-Martin corner kick. The ball was deflected past freshman goalkeeper Olivia Wood to make the score 1-0. The Lady Skyhawks would continue to play dominant soccer over the Lady Lions for the rest of the first half.
The Lady Lions started off the second half with intensity and the Lady Skyhawks were caught off-guard. UAPB kept pushing, getting stuck into tackles and stringing together more passes than the first half. The overall shots were eight for UTM and seven for UAPB which shows that the game was quite even.
The Lady Lions kept playing hard all the way to the last thirty seconds. Freshman Molly Stone stepped up to the free kick from about 40 yards out and launched a ball into the Skyhawks box that found the head of junior forward Nicole Parks-Powell. Unfortunately, the Lady Skyhawks goalkeeper was there to make the save and the game ended.
“I am proud of the girls for playing hard until the end of ninety minutes. UT – Martin is a very talented team and we out played them in the second half. That gives our team a lot of confidence in knowing that we can compete against these high-quality mid-major schools. This was another great experience for us in preparation for the conference tournament that will be coming here in about three weeks,” said Coach Mazza.
The Lady Lions next game is at home Friday, October 22 at 3PM versus the Delta Devilettes of Mississippi Valley State University.
