FARMVILLE, Va. – In a battle of two of the top four teams in the Big South, Campbell mounted a second-half comeback to take down Longwood 2-1 and maintain a top-three conference standing Wednesday evening at the Longwood Athletics Complex.
The Camels (11-6-0, 6-3-0 Big South) entered the matchup with a one-point lead over Longwood for third place on the Big South leaderboard held on to that slot thanks to a pair of second-half goals from Shannon Wratchford and Kine Thorsvik. The comeback erased the 1-0 lead Longwood took on the first career goal from sophomore
Janese Quick in the ninth minute.
"When we played soccer, we did a lot of good things in terms of creating chances and scoring a nice goal," said Longwood head coach
Todd Dyer, whose Lancers had strung together a five-game unbeaten streak prior to the loss.
"When we lost our composure and stopped playing soccer, we had to defend more than we should have, and we compounded that by allowing too much time and space to dangerous players. Ultimately, we paid for that."
Quick's goal came just 8:25 into the game on a pass into the box from
Olivia Colella, but several ensuing missed scoring chances doomed the Lancers (8-6-2, 4-2-2 Big South). Campbell survived four straight point-blank shot attempts in the nine minutes after Quick's goal, watching two sail off target and blocking two others in front of a congested net on a corner kick.
Those opportunities came back to haunt Longwood when Wratchford punched in the equalizer with a left-footed touch off a lofting cross from Murita Storey. Wratchford snuck through the backside of Longwood's defense just in time to meet the pass from Storey, who was the intermediary of a passing sequence that started off the foot of Big South goals and assists leader Ashley Clark.
Longwood and Campbell held that 1-1 deadlock until the Camels wrestled momentum away from the Lancers on Thorsvik's go-ahead score in the 63rd minute. Thorsvik was the beneficiary of a breakaway one-on-one matchup between Payton Ormsby and Lancer goalkeeper
Maria Kirby, with Ormsby lunging to send a pass just past Kirby to Thorsvik in front of an open net.
Thorsvik's game-winner stood for the final 28 minutes of regulation thanks to Campbell goalkeeper Alexis Connors, who made two saves in front of the net on Longwood corner kicks, including a diving stop on a corner kick redirect from Lancer senior
Meghan Magee.
The loss is Longwood's first since an overtime defeat the hands of first-place Coastal Carolina on Sept. 26. The Lancers had gone 3-0-2 following that loss to climb all the way to fourth place in the Big South. The Lancers still maintain fourth place with the head-to-head tiebreaker over High Point and have the opportunity to climb inside the top three with two regular season games remaining against UNC Asheville and Liberty.
#GoWood
