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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Soccer Sweeps SEC Road Weekend, Beats Alabama 2-1
10/5/2008 | Soccer
Amy Bayles and Danielle Johnson scored for the Rebels, who take over first place in the Southeastern Conference Western Division with a 3-1 league mark after two weekends and improve to 5-5-2 overall. The Crimson Tide dropped to 7-4-1 overall and 2-2 in SEC contests.
Ole Miss put on a powerful and balanced offensive display over the weekend. Four different players collected a total of five goals, led by Taylor Cunningham’s two scores in the 3-1 Friday night win at
“Wow, it’s nice to come out of here with a win,” said Steve Holeman, who collected his 150th career victory as a head coach on Sunday. “SEC road wins don’t come easy, and that was the case today. We dominated the first half, but even with a two-goal lead at halftime, it was a grind. We had a defensive miscue that allowed
Ole Miss wasted no time getting on the scoreboard, as they took the opening kickoff to produce a scoring chance right away, and All-SEC midfielder Bayles connected for the go-ahead score just 25 seconds into the match. After a long ball in the air, Hannah Weatherly played a ball out wide to Bayles, who beat her defender 1 v 1 and struck her shot inside the far post for her first goal of the season.
“That first goal happened so fast,” Holeman said. “It was definitely a comfortable way to start a match.”
The Rebels maintained their 1-0 lead for the next 35 minutes before taking advantage of a well-struck free kick from the corner of the 18-yard-box by Mallory Coleman that found a charging Johnson, who headed the ball in for her first goal of the season and a 2-0 Rebel lead.
The first half belonged to Ole Miss, as the road team out-shot the home squad 13-7, but the second half was a different story with Shannon Lathrop scoring for the Tide at the 47:05 mark and
Ole Miss found a way to hang onto the advantage, though, and improve its league win streak to three. The Rebels entered the season with a 15-match unbeaten streak against SEC West foes prior to the league-opening loss to
“It’s always tough to win any SEC match, especially on the road,” Holeman said. “This was a huge weekend for us. I hope we can even take a little bit of a lesson from today. We are certainly a better team than we showed today, but we still found a way to win. We have to be ready to hit the road again. It only gets more difficult as we go through the entire conference season.”
The four-game road swing continues next weekend when the Rebels visit nationally ranked
