Lady Cavaliers win GCAA Soccer Championship; advance to Melbourne

ALBANY –

Women's Recap

With a 5-0 shut out victory, the Lady Cavaliers looked good from top to bottom and dominating their semifinal match against ABAC. Goalkeeper Haylie Zolman made five saves to get the shutout, while her forwards and midfielders kept relentless pressure on the ABAC defenses.

Darton forward and Region 17's leading goal-scorer, Lauren Ebbs, struck ABAC's net first with a perfectly placed penalty kick that blasted by ABAC's diving goalkeeper's fingertips into the extreme lower-left corner of the goal.

Midfielder Kelly Hoffius and defender Janay Campbell each scored a goal to end the first half 3-0 in Darton's favor.

Hoffius scored again in the second half and a goal by Maggie Vanhusan put Darton way out of ABAC's reach.

The win pushes Darton to 14-2 overall and 11-1 in conference play. Darton State College eliminated ABAC from the Region 17 tournament today and will move onto the Championship Final on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Game 2:

#2 South Georgia State battled with Andrew in the second women's semifinal game of the day. The Lady Tigers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first half. Late in the first half South Georgia State's Amanda Nelson received a red card forcing the Lady Hawks to continue play with one fewer player. This disadvantage didn't stop SGSC as they scored a goal in the 1st half to tie the match at 1-1. Second half action went the way of the Lady Hawks as they scored two additional goals to take a 3-1 victory and move South Georgia's record to 10-4-1.

Sunday Championship Game:

It wasn't an easy path but the Lady Cavaliers took a four goal second half effort to claim their 7th GCAA/Region 17 championship beating South Georgia 4-2 in the tournament final at Darton.

South Georgia capitalized on two opportunities granted in the first half to take a 2-0 lead behind the excellent goal keeping of Rachel Hardin.

Darton came out in the second half and went to work on the South Georgia defense. The Lady Cavs tied the game at 2-2 with 28:17 left in the contest. The game-winner came at the 14:25 mark of the second half from the Region's leading scorer, Lauren Ebbs, who minutes later also scored the final goal and earned her 4th hat trick of the season.

"She struggled in the first half," Veilands said of Ebbs. "But in the second she got into the spaces where she would be able to finish, and she executed."

 "We showed some maturity," Veilands said. "(Forward) Bri (Lemerise) stepped back to help the defense and secure the lead."

Darton is now 16-2 overall and 13-1 in Region 17 play. They'll travel to Melbourne, Fla., for the 2014 NJCAA D-1 Women's Soccer Championship on Nov. 17-22.