Lady Eagles Kick off Season in Florida

carson-newman sports logoThe Carson-Newman women’s soccer team is Florida bound for its season opener against Tampa this afternoon.

Last season, the Eagles finished 6-7-4 overall and 4-4-3 in the conference.

“We’ve told the kids that it’s not how you start,” Carson-Newman head soccer coach Richard Moodie said, “it’s how you finish. And we finished pretty strongly in the spring season.”

Tampa finished 15-4-2 last season and advanced to the NCAA Southeast Region second round match.

“This weekend,” Coach Moodie said, “we’re playing against arguably two of the top teams in the nation. We just want to benchmark where we are.”

At the Columbus State tournament, the Spartans defeated both Tusculum and no. 15 Lenoir-Rhyne 2-0.

C-N lost 2-0 at Tusculum last fall. At home, the Eagles fell 3-2 to L-R with one point supplied by Mikayla Gregg (Newport, Tenn.) and a last minute goal from then freshman Gabrielle Gianeselli (Knoxville, Tenn.).

“We’ve had two major years of improvement in the program,” Coach Moodie said. “We’d like to start seeing some of that success and hopefully our philosophy starts coming out on the field.”

Eighteen new players have been added to this year’s Eagle squad.

The Eagles kick off against the Spartans today at 5 p.m. The match can be followed live at http://www.statbroadcast.com/events/statbroadcast.php?gid=tamp&t=1.

Source: Brooke Ehman, Carson-Newman University Sports