Serafy's Squad Looking to Improve

J. Andrew Lockwood
Senior Editor / Columnist

The team that won the Atlantic Sun regular season title seemed to be noticeably absent from Bear Field a week and a half ago as the women’s soccer team dropped their second and third Atlantic Sun matches this year to Florida Gulf Coast 2-1 and to Stetson 3-2.

In the Friday night matchup, FGCU outplayed the Bears when it mattered, controlling the tempo of the match for most of the 90 minutes. Striking less than 20 minutes into the match, FGCU’s Olivia Elias gave her team the edge until Mercer’s Lauren Johnson responded with a goal of her own. The fans thought overtime might be eminent with a 1-1 score until the Eagle’s Amber McCall received a cross from the foot of Jess Swartzentruber and deposited it in the goal just past Bears goalie Jean Worts. It was a tough loss for the Bears against a quality A-Sun opponent, but they hoped to rebound on a day’s rest against the Stetson Hatters.

Te rest seemed to pay off for Mercer for most of the game. Clinging to a 1-0 lead off of a Lauren Johnson goal in the 17th minute, Mercer controlled both halves but allowed the Hatters to take their shots at the end of the game. Stetson took full advantage, sinking three goals in the net in a matter of 2 minutes and 32 seconds, giving them an unheralded 3-2 lead. Mercer’s Kacie Hudson was able to score in the last minute off of a header from a corner kick, but the loss was a tough late-game meltdown that was altogether hard for Bears fans to swallow.

“Stetson wanted it more than we did,” head coach Grant Serafy reported on MercerBears.com. He added, “Three goals in a two or three minute span…that’s desire. Stetson had it all today.” Indeed, it was Stetson with all of the desire late in the game, but what makes the loss even harder was the statistical spread between Mercer and Stetson on offense. The Bears outshot the Hatter 19-7 throughout the game, but were only able to convert two of the opportunities.

A week of practice helped the team move past the bitter losses, taking them to play the Jacksonville Dolphins in a north Florida road trip. In a stalemate game, the Bears ended up taking a 1-0 victory from the Ashley Sports Complex off of a Kacie Hudson goal via teammate Patricia-Anne Upson in the 63rd minute. More importantly, the win was the team’s first conference victory of the 2009 season.

Afterwards, Serafy was quite pleased with the play of his team, commenting, “Tonight’s game was very important for us in that we were able to pick up our first conference win of the season. Hopefully we can build on our win tonight and use it as a turning point in moving forward in A-Sun play.”

Speaking about the late second half goal, the head man added, “Kacie’s goal was a very courageous play on her part because she stuck her nose in the box and connected on a header in traffic which was very brave.” In addition to Hudson’s great play on offense, goalkeeper Jean Worts was especially sharp, compiling three saves in the game for her third shutout of the season.

On Sunday, the team lost another closely contested match to North Florida to fall to 5-6-1 (A-Sun 1-4) on the season. Quality, not quantity of shots was the name of the game as North Florida narrowly defeated the Bears after shooting 1 for 2 on the goal for the contest. UNF’s Kristin Rhodes 49th minute goal was ultimately cost Mercer another conference game on the road.

Serafy’s squad will hope to rebound with a two game home stand against Belmont and Lipscomb next weekend in what should be another exciting round of Atlantic Sun soccer.