FARMVILLE, Va. – A pair of quick-strike goals from Kennedy Culbreath and Emilie Kupsov and a five-save day from freshman goalkeeper Mary Kate Levush sent Longwood to a 2-1 home win over UMBC in the Lancers' non-conference finale Sunday afternoon at the Longwood Athletics Complex.
 
Just two days since suffering a frustrating 1-0 loss to American Friday, Longwood (2-4-0) struck early with back-to-back goals from Culbreath and Kupsov in the game's first 12 minutes and settled in defensively to clamp down on UMBC's offense the rest of the way.
 
Levush, in her third career start, staked her claim in front of Longwood's net early, making four saves in the first 20 minutes en route to a coming-out weekend in which she allowed just two goals in her 180 minutes in net.

"It's nice to win our final non-conference game and hopefully get some momentum going into league play," said head coach Todd Dyer. "We started strong in the first half and scored two nice goals. But then in the second half we made things difficult on ourselves by not keeping the ball. Give credit to UMBC because they changed their system, and we struggled dealing with that at times. It was a grind for sure, and we showed the character to finish it out."
 
Longwood allowed the Retrievers (1-4-2) to put just six of their 17 shots on goal and blanked them through the first 80 minutes of the game. Their lone goal came from Christina Corbi, who punched in her own rebound after Levush deflected her first point-blank shot attempt in the 81st minute.
 
That goal was not enough to overcome the two first-half strikes from Culbreath and Kupsov, however, as Longwood's frontline duo paired up for a pair of goals within two minutes of each other early in the game. Those two started the scoring when Kupsov threaded a cross through UMBC's box to Culbreath, who uncorked a grounder into the left post, chased down the rebound and stuck it in for a 1-0 lead.
 
Kupsov made it 2-0 just 91 seconds later when she stole the ball near the top of UMBC's box, spun and fired a left-footed grounder just inside the lower right post past a diving Jade Wilkins. The goal was Kupsov's second of the season and 18th of her career, moving her into fourth on Longwood's Division I career scoring list.
 
Meanwhile Culbreath increased her hold on Longwood's scoring lead with her third goal of the season.
 
Sunday's game signals the end of the non-conference portion of Longwood's schedule and will send the Lancers into their Big South opener this Saturday, Sept. 21, at Presbyterian. That game will be the first of back-to-back road conference bouts for Longwood, which follows with a trip to Hampton the following Wednesday.
 
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