Gordon State College Hosts GCAA Women's Soccer Championship
By: Steve Argo, Development Officer
Gordon State College’s women’s soccer team showed no rust coming off a nine-day break as the Highlanders cruised to a 10-0 home victory over Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) in a Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association semifinal Tuesday night at the GSC Athletic Complex.
GSC, regular-season champion and the No. 1 seed in the tournament, improved to 15-2-2 overall and moves on to Thursday’s GCAA championship game against No. 3 seed Georgia Military College, a 3-1 winner over No. 2 seed South Georgia State College in the other GCAA semifinal.
Game time is set for 7 p.m. at the GSC Athletic Complex and admission is free as the Highlanders attempt to go 10-0 at home this season.
Thursday’s showdown will mark the third straight year that GSC and GMC have battled for the conference tournament title. GMC took a 5-3 win in 2017 and GSC returned the favor in 2018 with a 2-1 victory.
The winner will advance to the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) tournament and represent the GCAA (also known as Region 17).
GSC took the regular-season series with GMC 2-0-1, including a 2-1 home victory on September 24 and a 1-0 home win on October 15. The two teams played to a 3-3 draw on September 6 in Milledgeville.
GMC upped its record to 9-6-1 with the road victory at SGSC.
Head coach Scott Henderson’s GSC squad jumped out to a 2-0 halftime lead on a rain-soaked night as freshman midfielder Jennifer Beharie (Leiderdorp, the Netherlands / DaVinci College) scored in the 19th minute and freshman defender Ashley Hendrix (Griffin, Ga. / Home School) made it a two-goal advantage just four minutes later.
Hendrix connected for her second goal of the game and freshman forward Jersie Stephens (Griffin, Ga. / Spalding High School) added a score in the first six minutes of the second half as GSC built the advantage to 4-0.
Hendrix completed the hat trick in the 60th minute with her third goal of the contest to make it 5-0.
After Beharie's second goal of the game, freshman forward Gabriela Arellano (Miami, Fla. / John A. Ferguson Senior High School), sophomore defender Isabelle Vazquez (Bradenton, Fla. / Braden River High School), freshman defender Stephanie Hahn (Dallas, Ga. / Paulding County High School) and freshman midfielder Hailey Hadsell (Barnesville, Ga. / Lamar County High School) completed the scoring for GSC with second-half goals and the final 10-goal victory.
GSC’s defense was stout once again as a pair of goal keepers – sophomore Brooke Shavers (Meansville, Ga. / Pike Co. High School) and freshman Becca Doyle (Acworth, Ga. / Harrison High School) – kept ABAC scoreless and without a shot on goal.
GSC hasn’t allowed a goal since a 4-1 loss to Holmes Community College (Miss.) in Birmingham, Ala., on October 11. The Highlanders have outscored their opponents 23-0 during the current five-game winning streak.