Scotties Advance To Conference Semi-Finals For Fifth Consecutive Year
For the fifth year in a row, the Agnes Scott Soccer Team advanced to the semi-finals of the Great South Athletic Conference Championships. The team recorded an overall record of 7-12-1 and conference mark of 5-6-1, good for fourth place in the standings.
Team awards were presented at the Agnes Scott Athletics Department Banquet in April. The Rookie of the Year Award was given to Amber Sherer. Junior Cara Snyder was named Most Improved Player, while two-time all-conference performer, Caitlin Suilmann was named the team's Most Valuable Player.
In their semi-final match in November, the Scotties grabbed an early lead over Maryville College and actually extended it, but could not hold on, as they fell by a score of 7-2. Maryville went on to defeat Spelman, 6-1 for their seventh straight conference championship.
The Scotties got off to a dream start when senior Ashley Schmidt (Lawrenceville, Ga.) hit a 30-yard bomb 45 seconds into the game to give the Scotties their first lead against Maryville in three years. The start got even better in the 22nd minute when Kate Schuhlein (Germantown, Tenn.) split the Lady Scots defense and doubled the lead.
“I honestly could not believe the start,” Head Coach Joe Bergin said. “To score one is great, but two is outstanding. And we hit the cross bar on another shot! I was hoping we could sustain that energy level for the whole game.”
Injuries played a major part in the remainder of the game as the Scotties lost two defenders in the span of ten minutes in the first half. First-year Amber Sherer (Asheville, N.C.) went out after getting kicked in the face and fellow defender Meredith Clark (Gainesville, Ga.) left a short time later with an ankle injury.
“The injuries forced us to change a lot and we just could not recover from that,” said Bergin. “Take nothing away from my kids, they worked very hard, but it is difficult to knock off a quality side like Maryville without all of your starters, much less missing two defenders.”
Maryville finished the half on a roll, scoring three goals in a span of 13 minutes to go into the break up 3-2. The Lady Scots finished off the Scotties in the second half with four additional goals for the final margin of 7-2.
“The score does not look good, but I am so proud of our kids,” said Bergin. “To put this into perspective, we started seven first-years today against a team that has not lost in 88 conference games. This bodes well for us for the future. We have a bunch of off-season work ahead of us which includes strengthening our players and the squad through recruiting.”
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