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CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – The Southeast Missouri soccer team was quite comfortable at Houck Stadium this season and the team saved its best home performance for its last one.
The Redhawks dominated Eastern Illinois in their home finale, 4-0, on Sunday afternoon.
With the win, Southeast is 8-5-3 overall and moves into second place in the Ohio Valley Conference standings at 6-1-2 in conference play. The Panthers are 6-12 and 6-3 in OVC play. Southeast is 8-1-2 in its last 11 matches and finished the year 6-0-1 at home.
The Redhawks received some more good news as SIU Edwardsville defeated first-place UT Martin 1-0. Southeast trails UT Martin by one point (21 to 20) in the standings and can win its fifth regular season OVC title with a win at UTM in the season finale on Friday.
"It was beautiful watching us today," Southeast head coach
Heather Nelson said. "We are a fun team to watch when we are at our best, which we were today. We have so much depth and I am not sure who will be the difference maker in a given match. That's a good thing for us because opponents can't key in on just one player."
Southeast erupted offensively with four first-half goals.
Breana Beine opened the scoring in the 23rd minute when
Natasha Minor broke down her defender and slipped the ball across to Beine on the doorstep for her second of the season. Three minutes later,
Stephanie Palmer netted her first of the year when she drilled a shot through a crowd off a corner kick that found the back corner of the goal.
With Southeast dominating across the board,
Kasey Crowden blew the match open by scoring two goals 2:39 apart. She weaved through the defense on the left side and blasted a shot that eluded EIU keeper Cortney Jersey to the far post for her first of the season in the 39th minute. She then tapped in a feed from
Amy Ward for her second of the day in the 41st minute of play to cap the scoring. Southeast outshot EIU 11-1 and had a 4-1 advantage in corner kicks in the opening 45 minutes of play.
With the large lead, Southeast was able to fully utilize its bench. Only one field starter played more than 60 minutes and nobody logged more than 65 minutes. A total of 21 Redhawks saw minutes in the game. Southeast's depth performed well in the second half, holding EIU to only three shots while taking five of its own to secure the shutout win.
The Redhawks outshot the Panthers 16-4 and finished with a 10-1 advantage in corner kicks. Crowden led all players with four shots and her first two goals of the year. This is her second-career two-goal outing as she did so at Tennessee Tech on Oct. 26, 2012.
Ashton Aubuchon was the only Redhawk to play all 90 minutes, she stopped both shots she faced for her seventh shutout this season. Cortney Jerzy stopped seven of 11 shots for EIU.
Friday's title bout at UT Martin kicks off at 7 p.m.
