Box Score
MIAMI SHORES â€" Erin Moseley turned in a brilliant performance for Florida Southern in its Sunshine State Conference Tournament semifinal match against #21 Rollins, but the Tars used two first-half goals and one very early in the second half to win 3-0. The result put Rollins into the SSC Championship Game for the third year in a row, and brought Florida Southern’s season to an end after a strong finish.
Moseley, a junior from Jacksonville, made a career-high 13 saves for the Moccasins while facing shots from every angle. That total was the second highest in the history of the SSC Tournament, which was first held in 2003. Eckerd’s Morgan Crescent set the record last year when she made 19 in a first-round game against Nova Southeastern.
Florida Southern reached the tournament after a remarkable conclusion to the season. The Moccasins qualified by scoring in the 87th minute in their final regular season game at Nova Southeastern to force overtime, and winning the game there to grab the final spot. The Mocs then became the first #6 seed to ever win in the SSC Tournament by upsetting 14th-ranked Tampa in the first round, again in overtime, before falling to Rollins on Friday.
Rollins (14-3) came out firing to start the match with Mora Johnson and Taylor Thigpen forcing Moseley into saves in the second and eighth minutes. Center back Azure Dorsey also created a pair of good chances for the Tars in the early going, one of them Thigpen’s header off a free kick.
Sixteen minutes into the match, Brenna McKee nearly gave the Tars their first goal when she maneuvered around the Moccasin back line and had superior position on Moseley at the corner of the 6-yard box. Instead of shooting the ball to the wider side of the net, McKee tried to go to the short side at the left post and pushed it wide. Less than three minutes after that, however, the Tars had the lead.
Rollins’ first goal came from Johnson, whose 8-yard shot deflected off a defender and across the line for her seventh goal of the season. It came after Nicole Fischer and Emma Jones worked the ball out of the right corner, and in the 31st minute it was Allie Holly’s ball out of the left corner that led to McKee’s goal at the back post.
The Tars added to their lead a little over two minutes into the second half when Johnson brought the ball into the box from the right flank and dished it off for Emma Bloom. Bloom one-timed a shot past Moseley inside the near post, and Rollins was up 3-0 for the rest of the night.
The Rollins defense held Florida Southern to three shots in the match, all of them from long-range. Senior defender Alyssa Abrahamsen (Highland, N.Y.) had one in the 15th minute that went too high, but the Mocs were forced to play most of the game without their All-SSC center back after she left shortly thereafter due to injury.
Freshman Sheila Ramos (Tampa, Fla.) had a strong shot later in the first half that forced Mary Spring to her left to make the save, and sophomore Taylor Cox (Palm City, Fla.) brought about another save by Spring late in the second half.
Florida Southern finishes the season 5-11-4 after going 3-2-1 in its final six games.
