Two goals by Tennessee senior forward Mick Imgram proved to be too much as the ETSU women’s soccer team fell 2-0 to its in-state rival Saturday at the Regal Soccer Stadium in Knoxville.”Tonight we did what we wanted to do with our gameplan and unfortunately we came up just short,” said head coach Heather Henson. “Tennessee is the defending Southeastern Conference champion and against a high caliber club like them you can’t slip up any.”

The Lady Vols (1-0-0, 0-0-0 SEC) opened the scoring early as sophomore forward Emily Dowd crossed a pass into the box, where sophomore midfielder Emily Shore tapped a pass around the ETSU defense to Imgram, who fired home her seasons’ first goal.

ETSU’s (0-1-0, 0-0-0 A-Sun) took four shots in the first half – two apiece by senior forward Jordan Monty and junior midfielder Jessica Huntington – that were all denied by Lady Vol junior keeper Molly Baird.

“I thought Jessica and Jordan did an excellent job attacking Tennessee’s back defenders in the first half,” said Henson. “Throughout the start of the period we stood with Tennessee with some quality attempts from both ladies. With three minutes left in the opening period I believe we had a two shot lead, however we just were a bit unlucky finding the back of the net.”

As second-half play got underway Tennessee fired four shots before Imgram dribbled up the attacking zone firing her matches’ second goal in the 78th minute.

The Lady Vols held a 16-shot advantage over the Bucs, however, only four of their attempts were on goal.

“A lot of their shots were taken from the outside of our backline defense,” said Henson. “All four of our defenders played the entire match and did an outstanding job shutting down Tennessee’s offensive lanes. This forced them to take long shots over our defense.”

Sophomore keeper Megan Masch led the Bucs defense with four saves, while Baird tallied three for the Orange and White.

ETSU returns to action with its second straight road match of the season at Western Carolina Aug. 28.

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