The East Tennessee State Buccaneer soccer team took a fall Sunday afternoon when they lost 2-0 to Appalachian State University.
In the last regular season game of the year, the women’s soccer team (12-5-0 overall, 7-4-0 SoCon) did not have what it took to beat the Mountaineers (11-4-3, 5-3-2) at Kidd Brewer Stadium.
The Mountaineers were victorious in their offense, scoring their only two goals of the game in the first half.
The Bucs fought defensively in this second half but were unable to keep the Mountaineers from scoring.
“It was their senior day,” Coach Heather Henson said. “They were motivated and ready to play.”
The first goal was scored by the Mountaineers’ Renee Stetkevich after her free kick from the sidelines bounced off goal keeper Heather Sanden at the 16:29 minute mark.
The second goal was made by Staci Smith 21 minutes after the first goal. Smith beat two ETSU defenders and drove 10 yards untouched to score.
“The defense was not what we had been doing all year,” Henson said.
“We had a couple of breakdowns,” she said, and that is what allowed Appalachian State to score.
Both teams tightened up on defense in the second half, keeping the score at 2-0.
The Mountaineers out shot the Buccaneers, 17-7, in the game.
Despite the Bucs’ struggle defensively, Sanden had eight saves in the goal throughout the game.
The win caused goalkeeper Breland Meany of the Appalachian State Mountain-eers’ to record her seventh shut-out of the season. Meany also had five saves on the goal.
This loss caused the Buccaneers to fall from No. 3 to No. 5 in the Southern Confer-ence standings. This game was the end of the regular season for the Buccaneers.
They begin post season play in Greensboro, N.C. on Nov. 6 at the Southern Conference Tournament.
East Tennessee State will play the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
“We plan to make a couple of adjustments before the UTC game,” Henson said.
“We need to come out with a new attack and surprise them.

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