Lady Eagles one win away from conference title

By Karl Lyles - klyles@heraldonline.com

Winthrop will play in its first Big South women's soccer championship game at 2 p.m. today at Blackbaud Stadium in Charleston. The Lady Eagles, seeded eighth, have made an improbable run through the tournament. They will play the seventh-seeded High Point Panthers.

Today's contest marks the first time in Big South Conference women's soccer history that the bottom two seeds will square off for the tournament crown. The winner earns a berth in the NCAA tournament.

Winthrop (5-10-5) knocked off top-seeded Liberty in the first round Thursday. After no score in 110 minutes of play, it took a total of nine rounds of penalty kicks for Winthrop to pull off the upset. The Lady Eagles won 5-4 in penalty kicks.

The first round was all about upsets. All four games were won by the lower-seeded team, and it was just a precursor for Friday's results.

Winthrop took on VMI, and for the second game in a row, it needed to go to penalty kicks to advance. The teams played to a 1-1 tie before Winthrop won with a 3-0 advantage in penalty kicks.

Winthrop coach Melissa Heinz played a hunch in both rounds. She started redshirt sophomore Kelsy Weavil in goal, as usual, for both matches but elected to put freshman Sarah Schippers in for both shootouts. The decision worked like a charm.

High Point (6-15-1) advanced to the finals for the fourth time in seven seasons by defeating the sixth-seeded Radford Highlanders 1-0 in overtime Friday.

The Lady Eagles and High Point battled to a scoreless tie in Rock Hill on Oct. 11.