The South Carolina women’s soccer team advanced in conference play by beating Missouri in a tiring 1-0 game.
South Carolina recently played Kennesaw State at home and won 6-0. Four of the six goals came from sophomore Savannah McCaskill and junior Sophie Groff. The two forwards for the Gamecocks had two goals each.
The only other conference game South Carolina has played was against Georgia in Athens winning 3-1 with one of the goals from McCaskill. McCaskill is second in points and tied for second in goals for the SEC. She leads the Gamecocks in goals with seven and points with 17.
Entering the game, Missouri was 3-2-3 overall and recently beat its Southeastern conference opener Auburn 2-1. One of the most out-performing players for the Tigers is sophomore Savannah Trujillo. The power midfielder has scored two out of the eight goals for Missouri this season.
The last time these two teams met were in last year's SEC tournament, with South Carolina winning 2-1. The Tigers lead the series 3-1-0 against the Gamecocks.
Senior Caroline Kelly was 4-1-0 this season with six saves entering the game. Kelly started in the Sunday game in goal and played the entire 90 minutes. She is credited with another win and had four saves for the game.
In goal for Missouri was junior Kristen Rivers who played the entire game. Rivers had four saves but allowed one to let the Gamecocks take the victory.
With a lagging first half drawing to an end, freshman Simone Wark made her first goal in her collegiate career. In the 37th minute Wark managed to get past the defender and keeper for Missouri to give South Carolina the lead for the game. Wark’s goal was unassisted and gave the Gamecocks another win against the Tigers, strengthening their conference record to 2-0.
This was the only goal scored in the first half and the Gamecocks were unanswered on the field entering the locker room.
The second half was aggressive, with both teams attempting to score back and forth. South Carolina finished the game with 11 shot attempts, five of which were on goal. Missouri had 10 shot attempts, four of them on goal. The aggressive slant could be seen in the amount of fouls from both teams; the Gamecocks had 16 and the Tigers had 14.
Up next for South Carolina is against Texas A&M in the first SEC home play of the season Thursday at 7 p.m.