Nov. 4, 1999

NASHVILLE – The 14th-ranked University of Kentucky women’s soccertied the Georgia Bulldogs on Thursday afternoon, 1-1, in the first round ofthe SEC Tournament. However, UGA advanced to the semifinals of thetournament over UK in sudden death penalty kicks, 2-1.

UK (16-2-2) came out flat and fell behind 1-0 in the first half when UGAscored off a corner kick. The Dawgs’ Gina Forte sent the corner kick into acrowd in front of UK goalkeeper Beth Wells, but the ball appeared to bounceoff a UK player’s back and into the net, giving UGA 1-0 lead.

In the second half, the Cats came out a different team and clearlyoutplayed UGA (13-5-2), while outshooting the Dawgs 6-1 in the second half.

With under eight minutes left to play, UK finally got on the board whenfreshman Keri Boyce netted her 13th goal of the season. UGA keeper NicoleWilliams came out to try and corral the ball but was unable to scoop it up.Boyce found the ball at her feet and beat two UGA defenders, tying thescore at one goal apiece.

The Cats had a shot to win the game with just under two minutes remainingin the first overtime when UK’s Annie Gage sent a corner kick in to the boxbut defender Emily Oetjen’s header went wide to the left of the goal. UKoutshot the Dawgs in the first overtime, 4-0.

In the second overtime, both teams were unable to find the back of the netsending the game to penalty kicks.

In the first-round of penalty kicks, UGA nailed three of its first fivePK’s, while UK hit two of its first four kicks. The Dawgs had a chance towin the game on their final penalty kick but UK freshman keeper Jo Fletcherbatted the ball down. Gage took UK’s final PK and fired it past Williams tosave the game for the Cats and send it to a round of sudden death penaltykicks.

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 sending UGA tothe SEC semifinals via a 2-1 advantage on sudden death penalty kicks. TheCats unbeaten streak remains in tact at 16 games.

“We did not play well in the first half, but we made some adjustmentsbefore starting the second half,” UK coach Warren Lipka said. “Penaltykicks is a tough way to lose a game. We really didn’t have many solidscoring chances today and that hurt us. Jo Fletcher gave a great effort forus in goal. We just need to go back and regroup and get ready for our nextgame because our season 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 NCAA Tournament.

            1 2 1OT 2OT  F Georgia  1 0   0   0  1UK       0 1   0   0  1

First-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