#3 Longwood Defeats #6 Gardner-Webb, Advances to Semifinals
Behind a go-ahead goal from All-Big South first-team midfielder
Madison Lockamy less than four minutes into the game and a shutout from its vaunted backline, No. 3 seed Longwood grinded out a 2-0 win over No. 6 seed Gardner-Webb in the opening round of the 2021 Big South Championship Saturday night at the Longwood Athletics Complex.
The win propels the Lancers (8-7-4) to the Big South Championship semifinals for the third time in the past five years where they will face No. 2 seed High Point this Thursday, Nov. 7, at 4 p.m. in High Point, N.C.
Lockamy, playing in her fifth Big South Championship tournament, gave the Lancers an early 1-0 lead with a strike from 30 yards out that just beat the outstretched hand of Gardner-Webb goalkeeper Katelyn Kellogg. That upper-90 shot was the sixth career game-winner and second this season for the attacking midfielder and set the tone for a one-sided matchup that Longwood controlled throughout.
The Lancers held Gardner-Webb (8-12-0) to just two shots on goal, amassed a 16-7 shot advantage, and matched a season high by earning 10 corner kicks. Freshman
Julia Gill, who played 54 minutes off the bench, added an insurance goal in the 81st minute by finishing off a threaded needle of a pass from Lockamy to run the final margin to 2-0. Senior
Layne Fadely and junior
Kiersten Yuhas also earned points with a dual assist on Lockamy's game-winner.
Those goals also allowed senior goalkeeper
Jordan Horacek to earn her eighth shutout with one save, which was a diving stop in the 79th minute that preserved what was then a 1-0 Longwood lead. Sophomore defender
Amanda Arnone also made a defensive save of her own in the 17th minute to help the Lancers engineer their fourth home shutout in October.