Box Score CHARLESTON, SC – Host Charleston Southern forced overtime with a goal in 83rd minute and the host Buccaneers finished off the comeback win 8:20 into the extra session to nip visiting NJIT, 2-1, Friday afternoon in the first day of the women's soccer Nike Tournament in South Carolina.
The Highlanders will remain in Charleston, but travel across town to visit The Citadel to wrap up the weekend tournament with a noon match on Sunday. South Carolina State, the fourth team in the field, played at The Citadel on Friday and will visit Charleston Southern on Sunday.
NJIT (1-2) struck first with a header goal from sophomore
Dana Schules, who nodded in the rebound of a shot by
Madeline Griep, whose try hit the crossbar. The goal for Schules in the 17th minute was her first of the year and second of her career.
The early first-half goal by Schules held up for more than an hour of play, but Charleston Southern's Anna Sells equalized with an unassisted goal at 82:03, forcing overtime in game-time temperatures that topped 90 degrees with humidity topping 70 percent in the port city.
Neither team got off a shot until Erica Gazzani's golden goal header off of a corner kick by Gina Cox at 98:20. CSU is 2-1 on the season with the win over NJIT in the first-ever meeting between the programs.
The final totals showed Charleston Southern with 29 total shots to 13 for NJIT and the Buccaneers holding a 10-1 margin in corner kicks.
The goalkeeper totals showed Buccaneers keeper Liz-Amanda Brown with two saves and NJIT's
Samantha Bersett with 10 stops.
A closer look reveals that much of Charleston Southern's heavy statistical edge was piled up after the first half. In the opening 45 minutes, the total shots were 11-8, CSU, and 18-5 thereafter. The corners were 2-1 Buccaneers at the break and 8-1 the rest of the way, including the one in overtime to set up Gazzani's game-winning header.
Winning goalkeeper Liz-Amanda Brown made one save in each of the two half, none in overtime and NJIT's Bersett had three saves in the opening half and seven in the second.
The Highlanders did their most dangerous work in the minutes leading up to the Schules goal, outgunning the home team, 5-0, in the first 15 minutes.
In the 16th minute, Charleston Southern committed a foul outside of the 18 yard box and Griep, a junior who had the team's only assist through the first two games of 2014, took the free kick. Her shot hit the crossbar and Schules, who is 5-foot-3, headed in the rebound to give the Highlanders the 1-0 lead.
The NJIT defense, which has been well-organized in front of Bersett through the opening three games of the young season, had four blocked shots, with junior
Danielle Pierce supplying two of them. Sophomore
Julia Keebaugh also helped, making a great team save on the right post off of a corner kick.
Samantha Bersett started the second aggressively challenging field players and made a sliding save to keep Charleston Southern off the board until the late going. She made point-blank stops against Chelsea Phillps and Sells before CSU finally pulled even late in regulation,
CSU's first goal by the sophomore Sells was an individual effort that saw her carry down the left side and beat the Highlander defenders and then Bersett to bring the score even at 1-1 with less than eight minutes showing on the game clock in regulation.
Gazzani's game winner came some 16 minutes later, as she headed in the corner service from Cox.
