Game-winner in overtime dooms Gamecocks
The South Carolina women’s soccer team was unable to rewrite the script Friday night as Stanford ousted the Gamecocks in the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years.
Taylor Uhl scored the golden goal less than two minutes into overtime to break the scoreless tie. The Cardinal won 1-0 behind an Uhl goal for the second consecutive game.
“It was a battle and a heartbreaker, especially to end in overtime like that,” senior midfielder Elizabeth Sinclair said. “But I was really proud of my team for the way that we hung in there and showed a lot of heart.”
After strong defensive performances from both sides through regulation, Stanford was able to capitalize on their first chance in overtime. Junior midfielder Chioma Ubogagu intercepted Sabrina D’Angelo’s attempted clearing at the top of the box and fed it to Uhl, who softly struck the ball past D’Angelo inside the left post for the winner.
“It didn’t look like a dangerous situation so credit to their attackers,” head coach Shelley Smith said. “They have some special players up top and they did what they neded to do to move on.”
Friday’s match was much tighter than the 2-0 result in 2011 in which Stanford outshot South Carolina 26-5 en route to a national championship.
“Stanford is an excellent team,” Smith said. “You’re not gonna get a lot of looks and the ones we did we just weren’t as accurate as we should’ve been in the final third. There were times that I thought we had good chances and we hit balls over or didn’t take the touch we needed to really bury a shot.”
Coryn Bajema, who has been an offensive sparkplug since returning from injury in mid-October, led South Carolina with 2 shots and registered the only shot on goal in the 36th minute.
Gabrielle Gilbert, Stevi Parker, Danielle Au, and leading-scorer Raina Johnson also registered shots for the Gamecocks.
The match turned out to be the defensive battle many had anticipated. Stanford registered just three corner kicks while the Gamecocks, who have thrived off set pieces all season, registered two.
“We struggled keeping the ball in the beginning of the first half and then in the second half we made a few changes and we were getting more up the field which is nothing that ends in a shot or a corner kick unfortunately,” Sinclair said.
The loss was South Carolina’s first overtime defeat of the season. The Gamecocks entered the match with a 2-0-2 record in such games.
Smith acknowledged how stunning the golden goal can be to a team in a one-and-done format.
“It was disappointing to obviously be done and to have the season end so abruptly after playing so hard for 90 minutes, it stung,” Smith said. “At some point they’ll realize what a great season they’ve had. I was proud of their efforts. They really had a tremendous season.”