Oct. 6, 2002
Elizabeth Ramsey scored the game-winning goal and Liz Butler recorded her first-career Southeastern Conference shutout to lead the University of Kentucky women’s soccer team to a 3-0 victory over Florida at the UK Soccer Complex Sunday. The win for the Wildcats (7-4-0/2-1-0 SEC) represents the first victory over the Gators (4-7-1/1-2-0 SEC) in the program’s 11-year history, as UF entered the match with a 10-0-0 series lead over UK.
“It’s just a matter of hard work and perseverance,” Coach Warren Lipka said. “You can’t give in to adversity – you have to fight through it and this team demonstrated today what it’s capable of. Our team worked hard, it fought and I applaud the effort of our athletes- they didn’t give up after Friday’s loss to South Carolina. We found out what we did wrong, we fixed it, and we were able to get a result today.”
The Cats avoided disaster 25 minutes into the first period when Robin Fulton, who led the Gators with five shots, had a breakaway one-on-one chance against Bulter. Big Blue Nation gave a sigh of relief when the junior forward dribbled out of control on her attack at the goal and the shot slipped just wide of the right post.
From there, it was all UK. Ramsey’s game-winner was scored at 27:48 when the All-SEC forward one-touched the ball past UF goalkeeper Jordan Kellgren from 10 yards out. Jen Wilkinson collected her first of two assists for the match on Ramsey’s team-leading fifth goal of the season as the Darien, Ill., native fed Courtney Pollock who executed a perfect lob to Ramsey en route to UK’s 1-0 edge. UK built its lead to 2-0 when Wilkinson found a racing Ramsey toward the left of the box who in turn, crossed to teammate Lauren Russell. Russell was able to get a foot on the ball that rolled slowly past an out-of-place Kellgren into the right corner of the UF goal.
“Ramsey is an extremely hard worker and I knew she’d get to that ball on the end line,” an exhausted but exuberant Russell said. “I just positioned myself around the keeper so I could get a foot on it and it rolled in.”
Christal Mattingly closed out the scoring for the match at 65:12 as Kathy Fulk fed the ball through the UF defense and the senior midfielder dented the net from 12 yards out.
The 3-0 UK win is the worst SEC defeat in Florida’s eight years of fielding a women’s soccer program. The previous losing margin for UF came Sept. 14, 1997 as the Gators fell 2-0 to Vanderbilt in Gainesville. The three goals posted by the Cats are the most against the Gators in league play since UF defeated UK, 5-3, on Oct. 6, 2000.
The Wildcats continue SEC play this Friday, Oct. 11 when they travel to Athens, Ga., to do battle with the Georgia Bulldogs at 7 p.m. ET. A 2 p.m. ET match with Tennessee on Sunday, Oct. 13 will conclude next weekend’s action.
12FUF000UK123Scoring: Ramsey, UK (Pollock, Wilkinson), 27:48; Russell, UK (Ramsey, Wilkinson), 52:06; Mattingly, UK (Saas, Fulk), 65:12Shots: UF 8, UK 12Saves: UF 3, UK 5Fouls: UF 18, UK 13Corner Kicks: UF 7, UK 1Attendance: 638
– UK –
