Wildcat’s tie game with less than eight minutes remaining, lose on penalty kicks.
NASHVILLE (Nov. 4, 1999) — The 14th-ranked University ofKentucky women’s soccer tied the GeorgiaBulldogs on Thursday afternoon, 1-1, in the firstround of the SEC Tournament. However, UGAadvanced to the semifinals of the tournament overUK in sudden death penalty kicks, 2-1.
UK (16-2-2) came out flat and fell behind 1-0 inthe first half when UGA scored off a corner kick.The Dawgs’ Gina Forte sent the corner kick into acrowd in front of UK goalkeeper Beth Wells, butthe ball appeared to bounce off a UK player’s backand into the net, giving UGA 1-0 lead.
In the second half, the Cats came out a differentteam and clearly outplayed UGA (13-5-2), whileoutshooting the Dawgs 6-1 in the second half.
With under eight minutes left to play, UK finally goton the board when freshman Keri Boyce netted her13th goal of the season. UGA keeper NicoleWilliams came out to try and corral the ball but wasunable to scoop it up. Boyce found the ball at herfeet and beat two UGA defenders, tying the scoreat one goal apiece.
The Cats had a shot to win the game with just undertwo minutes remaining in the first overtime whenUK’s Annie Gage sent a corner kick in to the boxbut defender Emily Oetjen’s header went wide tothe left of the goal. UK outshot the Dawgs in thefirst overtime, 4-0.
In the second overtime, both teams were unable tofind the back of the net sending the game to penaltykicks.
In the first-round of penalty kicks, UGA nailed three of its first five PK’s,while UK hit two of its first four kicks. The Dawgs had a chance to win thegame on their final penalty kick but UK freshman keeper Jo Fletcher battedthe ball down. Gage took UK’s final PK and fired it past Williams to savethe game for the Cats and send it to a round of sudden death penalty kicks.
UGA went first in sudden death and freshman Nicole Greathead hit the kick,while UK junior Jaime Dellbringge matched Greathead by nailing her PK.Freshman Beth Culver converted her kick putting the pressure on the Cats’.UK junior Hope Deutschle’s kick was knocked down by Williams sendingUGA to the SEC semifinals via a 2-1 advantage on sudden death penaltykicks. The Cats unbeaten streak remains in tact at 16 games.
“We did not play well in the first half, but we made some adjustments beforestarting the second half,” UK coach Warren Lipka said. “Penalty kicks is atough way to lose a game. We really didn’t have many solid scoring chancestoday and that hurt us. Jo Fletcher gave a great effort for us in goal. We justneed to go back and regroup and get ready for our next game because ourseason is far from over.”
UK must wait until Sunday night when the NCAA pairings are announced tosee where and when the Cats will be playing in the 1999 NCAATournament.
1 2 1OT 2OT F Georgia 1 0 0 0 1UK 0 1 0 0 1First-Round Penalty Kicks UGA - Cayard, Bongiovanni, Holder (3) UK - Brown, Ramsey, Gage (3) Sudden Death Penatly Kicks UGA - Greathead, Culver (2) UK - Dellbringge (1) Attendance: 587 Scoring - Forte, UGA (unassisted), 24:36; Boyce, UK (unassisted), 82:42 Shots - UGA: 9; UK: 14 Corner Kicks - UGA: 3; UK: 5 Goalkeeper Saves - UGA: 5; UK: 5 Fouls - UGA: 14; UK: 17
