After a blow-out against Wofford, 5-0, in the first round of the SoCon Tournament, the Bucs were set to take on Furman in the quarterfinals at the neutral site in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Twenty minutes into the match on Sunday, the Bucs player Eleonora Goldoni (Ferrera, Italy) sent a penalty kick into the net after a Furman player was called for a hand-ball within the 18-yard line.
The Bucs were first on the scoreboard with this goal, but they wouldn’t score again the rest of the match.
Nearing the 35th minute, Furman sent in a goal off a free kick to tie the score up 1-1.
Not five minutes later, Furman once again sent in a free kick to pull ahead 2-1 in the first half, and neither side scored again the rest of the match.
The game was competitive, with Furman recording 16 fouls and ETSU recording 14, and two yellow cards were distributed to each team.
Furman outshot ETSU throughout the match, taking 14 shots and seven on goal compared to the Bucs nine shots and two on goal.
With that Furman free kick resulting in a goal mid-way through the first half, the Bucs ended their 2017 season. They finished 4-6 in the regular season SoCon, having the 8th seed going into the start of the Tournament.
Overall, the Bucs finished the year 6-12, having tackled big competition at the beginning of the season against schools such as University of Tennessee, Virginia Tech and Radford University.
Despite the loss to Furman, there were individual accomplishments made during the match. Junior keeper Lea Ann Cutshall (Johnson City, Tennessee) recorded four saves during the game, bringing her all-time total up to 113. With another year of play left in her, she is only 27 saves behind the second place spot.
Goldoni, the lone scorer in the match on Sunday, was also named to the 2nd Team All-SoCon as a junior forward. She recorded 11 goals this season, her second time reaching double digits, which put her 3rd in the SoCon for goals scored.
She was joined in SoCon recognition by freshman teammate Sarah Connelly (Ballygowan, Northern Ireland) who was named to the Freshman All-SoCon team and scored two goals, both of which were valuable to the Bucs in the matches they were scored.
Women’s soccer has finished for this season, but the Bucs will pick back up in the spring with exhibition matches to continue preparing for the next fall.
