Box Score
TAMPA â€" Morgan Sammons and Princess Haley helped Florida Southern take early control of Friday night’s match, and once they had it, they never gave it back. With Sammons scoring two first-half goals, and Haley assisting two first-half goals, the Moccasins jumped out to a quick 3-goal lead and made it stand up the rest of the night for a 3-0 win over the University of Tampa.
Florida Southern (8-5, 4-1 Sunshine State Conference) scored all three of those goals in the first 22 minutes, including one just over three minutes into the game. Sammons scored the first one and the last one, Kerri-Ann Brown scored in between, and Haley assisted the first two. At that point, the Mocs had taken six shots, the Spartans none, and the game appeared well in hand.
The Mocs’ first goal came at the 3:11 mark when Haley served a long ball into the right corner of the box, where Sammons beat a defender and chipped it over Tampa goalkeeper Kendall Bourdon.
Another long ball by Haley helped give the Mocs a 2-0 lead in the 20th minute. This one came on a free kick from the left side of the field, and it was put in the net by Brown, who flicked it past Bourdon when the Spartan goalkeeper came out to play it. It was Brown’s eighth goal of the season, with four of them coming in the Mocs’ five SSC games.
Two minutes later, the Mocs scored again when Sammons intercepted a pass between two Spartan defenders, dribbled around Bourdon, and planted the ball into the net for her second goal of the night.
The rest of the match proved to be a battle, as the Spartans (5-7-1, 1-2) held the Mocs to only two more shots while taking 13 themselves. They also had 10 corner kicks and put enough pressure on the Florida Southern defense to make things a little more interesting. Twice during that stretch, Ashlie Haas blocked Tampa shots inside the box, while Kristen Vollmer did so once. Lexie Bottomley also stopped Sara Kneeland before the UT attacker could go 1-on-1 with Martina Tangen Billing.
Tangen Billing did have to make two saves, but neither was particularly taxing. The shutout was her sixth of the season, leaving her one short of the school record set two years ago by Sarah Furr.
Florida Southern will be back at home on Sunday afternoon when it hosts Lynn University at 2:00.
