A well place kicked from senior Chris Archer found Chris Shrum inside the box late in the second overtime period to propel High Point over UNC Asheville, 3-2 tonight at Richard Vert Track and Soccer Stadium. The Panthers improve to 4-6-3 (3-1-0 Big South) while the Bulldogs fall to 4-8-0 (1-3-0).

"This was absolutely a great conference win," said High Point head coach Peter Brodley. "While this was a great win we can't get too excited or too far ahead of ourselves. We have to keep building and working toward continued success in conference play."

Junior Josh Windley took a volley from freshman Hilaire Babou and sent the ball flying through the pipes in the 31st minute of the game to put the Panthers up 1-0 going into the break. The goal marked Windley's first of the season.

Coming out of the intermission High Point quickly jumped back on offense when freshman Justin Willis caught the rebound off of Asheville goalkeeper, Phillip Horner to give the Panthers the 2-0 advantage in the 54th minute.

"Josh had one of the best goals I've seen all season," said Broadley, "and I would say that Justin may have had a close second. Both played a great game tonight and put forth tremendous effort."

Just as the game was beginning to look like High Point's, UNCA responded with two goals within 10 minutes of each other. Ian Willmot crossed the ball to Scott Szymanski to in the 67th minute to prevent the Panther shut-out and bring the game within one.

In the 77th minute Nicholas Baud caught the ricochet and passed it to Ryan Haupt who sent it into the back of the net for the equalizing goal.

"A great first half was marred by some defensive lapses in the second," Broadley said. "I give tremendous credit to Asheville. They are always ready for you and always come at you with everything they have, they never give up."

High Point controlled most of the overtime period, recording five shots on goal including the game winner. Shrum's goal marks the first of the sophomore defender's career.

"We had some really standout performances tonight. Ryan Puppolo had a great game in the midfielder position. Daniel Haywood played a great game and worked hard to create opportunities around the goal for us and Harry Wilkes was very strong on defense tonight."

Both HPU's Daniel Clark and UNCA's Horner had six saves in the keeper position. High Point and Asheville were even in the SOG category with nine each while Asheville held the slight 16-15 advantage in shots.

The Panthers will return to the field for an intra-Triad match on Saturday against UNC Greensboro. Game time is set for 7 p.m. at UNCG Soccer Stadium.