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BOCA RATON - With Florida Southern closing in on its first Sunshine State Conference title, Liz Gorman stepped to the fore once again. This time, she took things into her own hands, or more appropriately, her own feet. Not once, not twice, but three times as she scored two unassisted goals and a near-unassisted goal to lead the 23rd-ranked Moccasins to a 4-2 win over Lynn on Tuesday afternoon.
Gorman's first career hat trick came on a wide variety of plays. Two of those goals came less than a minute apart early in the first half, and one of them certainly qualified as tricky. That staked the Moccasins (13-3, 7-0) to a 2-0 lead, and by halftime it was 3-0 after a goal by Princess Haley.
The star of the day, though, was Gorman, who became the second player in team history to score two goals in less than one minute, joining Amy Clampitt-Holsenbeck who did so against Warner Southern in 2006. Gorman's two goals came at the 12:47 and 13:42 marks, just 55 seconds apart.
The first goal was scored directly off a corner kick. Leading up to it, Gorman had two previous corner kicks knocked over the end line by the Lynn defense. Her third attempt curled straight into the goal, as she bent the ball from the left corner of the field into the upper right corner of the net.
The Knights (10-5-2, 3-4-1) seemed appeared stunned, but they were more stunned when Gorman scored again moments later. After receiving the ball from Princess Haley inside the box, Gorman was initially repelled by a Lynn defender. She got the ball back, however, and fired off a quick shot inside the left post for her fifth goal of the season.
Haley later made it 3-0 with a goal in the 39th minute after taking a downfield pass from Alex Hoover into the left side of the side of penalty box. Her shot to the far post was on target for her 11th goal of the year, tying the school's single season record set by Joanie DeHaven in 2003.
The score was 3-0 at halftime, but the Moccasins and Knights combined for three goals in the span of 47 seconds early in the second half, briefly turning the game into a shootout. The flurry started when a sequence of passes gave Lynn's Molly Anderson the ball inside the box and she connected for her eighth goal of the year.
The Moccasins immediately answered with Gorman driving a shot from 30 yards into the wind that dropped under the crossbar 19 seconds later. The teams were barely settled before the Knights scored again in the 52nd minute, this time with Anderson setting up a shot from the right wing by Sarah Mendelsburg.
That made the score 4-2, and it remained that way through the rest of the game, but only barely. Lynn had two good-looking chances in the 60th and 81st minutes, and another opportunity in the 86th minute when a cross made it through the Moccasin defense but no Lynn player was on the back side of the play to finish it.
In the 60th minute, it was a free kick from inside the attacking third which presented a problem. The ball was played into the six-yard box where more than one Lynn player got a touch during a scramble in front of the goal. The ball eventually went wide and Kristen Vollmer cleared it to end the threat.
In the 81st minute, Lynn defender Alyssa Rijavec served a ball into the box that looked as if it would sail wide of the goal before the wind pushed it back toward the center. Goalkeeper Martina Tangen Billing stayed with it though, and punched the ball away toward the right side of the box. That gave an open Summer McPhillips a chance to hit a running shot from 12 yards out, but it went high of the mark.
Lynn never got another shot, and the Moccasins were able to maintain possession for nearly all of the final minute to close out their 11th straight win. It was the Mocs' 13th victory of the season, breaking the school record for wins they set just last year.
Meanwhile, Gorman became the third different Moccasin with a hat trick this season, joining Erin Hopkins and Alex Hoover. It wasn't her first time in the spotlight though. The senior has exploded the second half of the season, with six goals and five assists over the last seven games. She scored the game-winner in the second half of a 2-0 win at Florida Tech, tied a school record with three assists in a 5-1 win vs. Nova Southeastern, and scored the tying goal in the second half of a 2-1 overtime win against Saint Leo.
Tuesday's result gives Florida Southern a first-round bye in next week's SSC Tournament and sets up a regular season finale on Friday night against Rollins that will decide the regular season championship. The Tars defeated Barry on Tuesday, giving them a 5-0-1 mark in league play, while the Moccasins are 7-0. A win or a tie by Florida Southern clinches the title outright, and will give the Mocs the #1 seed in next week's SSC Tournament.
Friday night's game in Winter Park kicks off at 7:00 p.m.
FSC  3  1   -  4
LU    0  2   -  2
SCORING: FSC--Gorman (unassisted), 12:47; FSC--Gorman (unassisted), 13:42; FSC--Haley (Hoover), 38:43; LU--Anderson (Ortiz, McPhillips), 51:25; FSC--Gorman (Griffith), 51:44; LU--Mendelsberg (Anderson), 52:12. SHOTS: FSC 11, LU 16. CORNER KICKS: FSC 5, LU 2. SAVES: FSC 4 (Tangen Billing 3, TEAM 1), LU 3 (Feller 2, Burn 1). FOULS: FSC 13, LU 8. CAUTIONS: None.
