The University of North Georgia women’s soccer team beat Lander University in the second round of the NCAA Division II Tournament on Sunday to advance to the third round of the tournament for the first time since 2016.
The second bout in 20 days between UNG and Lander started off with North Georgia applying pressure first. The Nighthawks took the first two shots of the day.
The 35th minute of the first half wound up being the game winning goal for the Nighthawks as Grace McGill scored her fourth goal of the season and second of the year against Lander.
“The feeling was amazing. I know how hard we’ve all worked to get to this spot that we’re in today,” said McGill postgame. And I really feel like we can go really far in this tournament…The trust that my teammates have in me to put the ball on the back of the net has been awesome. I mean, we all really click on the field and we’ve been clicking more and more.”
Beginning the second half, Lander pursued a goal to tie the game, but would not have anything to show for it in the end.
In the second half, UNG relied heavily on their defense and its goalkeeper Sierra Fowler to hold Lander to their second shutout loss of the season.
“It’s always a challenge to keep it scoreless, but I think we can, if we just keep our composure and do what we’ve been doing throughout the last few games, because we’ve been really successful with just defense and offense around the whole field. So yeah no doubt,” – Sierra Fowler, UNG goalkeeper
In the end, UNG delivered its eighth shutout of the season and fifth consecutive win with a shutout.
“Getting those two clean sheets was part of the plan for us obviously. We’ve been working on it a lot and closing out victories into this weekend. We managed to close [it] out too so [I’m] very proud of them. It’s not been easy because there’s two very great opponents and that made it very difficult,” said UNG women’s soccer coach Kayley Ralton.
The Nighthawks will continue on to another rematch; this time on the road against No. 2 overall seed and No. 1 seed in the Southeast region Columbus State on Dec. 1.
The last time that these two squads faced off against each other was on Oct. 26. The Nighthawks were able to hold the Cougars to a season-low one goal.
“I think it’s always a hard battle between the two of us. So I think just staying disciplined and keep going-that’s going to be a big message for the team. So, yeah, I think, you know, we’ve been playing and we’re getting into a good form here, so we can just keep that going…And I think, that changes things a little bit as well because there’s two teams trying to continue their season,” said Ralton on playing Columbus State again.
