BOX SCORE
High Point University won its first Big South Conference game of the season, 1-0, over Coastal Carolina before a crowd of 1,259 on Alumni and Parents Weekend at Vert Stadium on Saturday night.
Katie Taber (Lockport, N.Y./Lockport) scored the Panthers' goal and
Marisa Abbott (Troy, N.Y./Tamarac) made six saves for her second shutout of the season.
"This is when everything really counts, so I'm really excited for the girls to get a win in their first Big South game," said head coach
Marty Beall. "They worked so hard during the non-conference season to get better so to come out and beat the defending regular season champ 1-0 is a great win. I think Coastal Carolina is a very dangerous team so for us to win this game was great."
Taber scored her first goal of the season at 26:21 in the first half.
Laura Shupe (Cary, N.C./Green Hope) fed a cross to Taber at the top right corner of the goalie box and Taber threaded her shot just past Coastal Carolina goalkeeper Karen Pavlick and inside the right goal post.
HPU had several other good scoring chances in the first half.
Sara Rager (Silver Spring, Md./Paintbranch) got the ball in deep but couldn't beat her defender. Shortly after Rager's bid,
Courtney Spotts (Fort Collins, Colo./Fort Collins) put a hard shot off the post. In the final minutes of the half,
Casey Greco (Media, Pa./Penncrest) took a leading pass and shot the ball from the left side just wide of the far post.
Coastal Carolina got seven shots off in the first half, including a high shot from Jessie Benchley from the left side of the box and an Anna Tupy header on an indirect kick that went high. Abbott made saves on shots by Sarah McPartlan and Samantha Teijelo in the first half.
The second half was played mostly in the midfield, with Coastal Carolina getting several shots off toward the end of the game. Coastal's Dana Gentile had a couple of good scoring chances late when Abbott came way out of the net to break up a play, but Gentile's shot was wide on the short side. CCU's Morgan Thomas took a point blank shot that Abbott saved.
HPU had another shot on goal by Taber in the second half that was saved by Pavlick, one of her two stops in the game.
Jillie Johnston (Naperville, Ill./Naperville Central) and
Janay Whittaker (Stone Mountain, Ga./Peideia) had shots go wide in the second frame.
"I'm so excited about this win because we changed our system and only spent one week working on it," said Beall. "To come out and get the win in the new system and get the shutout is great."
The win was HPU's second of the season, putting the Panthers' record at 2-10-0 overall and 1-0-0 in the Big South. Coastal Carolina fell to 2-9-1 overall and 0-1-0 in the Big South.
The Alumni and Family Weekend festivities at the game included a pregame barbecue, a band for pregame, halftime and postgame and fireworks after the Panthers' victory.
The High Point University women's soccer team will be back in action on Monday when it hosts Charleston Southern at Vert Stadium at 3 p.m.
