No. 23 UCF Advances to C-USA Finals with 2-0 Win Over SMU
Championship match set for Sunday at 2 p.m.

11/6/10


ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) – Kim Newsome scored in the third minute and Nicolette Radovcic added the insurance marker in the 29th minute to enable the No. 23 UCF women’s soccer team to defeat SMU, 2-0, Friday in the Conference USA Championship semifinals. The top-seeded Knights will advance to the finals and will take on No. 2 seed Memphis Sunday at 2 p.m. at the UCF Soccer Complex.

“We scored an early goal again and that always helps,” said head coach Amanda Cromwell. “We finished well in the first half. In the second half we were just as dangerous but just couldn’t finish, and SMU came at us with a stronger attack. We were lucky that they did not put one in to make it a real interesting game.”

UCF stretched its record to 14-3-3 with the victory while the Mustangs dropped to 11-7-4. The Knights posted at least 20 shots for the fifth-straight match, outshooting SMU, 24-13.

Junior keeper and All-C-USA First Team member Aline Reis recorded four saves for her fifth shutout of 2010. It also was her 18th of her career which moved her into a tie with Kim Wyant for seventh on the UCF all-time list.

In UCF’s last two games of the regular season, Newsome put the Knights on the board in the first four minutes of each match. And that trend continued in the postseason. Gaining possession at midfield, Newsome was in a 3-on-1 situation and decided to take it all of the way and ripped a 15-yard shot past a diving Courtney Webb for a 1-0 lead in the third minute.

It was the seventh time overall that UCF scored in the first 10 minutes of a match this year, and four of them came from Newsome.

The Knights continued to put the Mustangs on their heels in the opening 45 minutes, and with constant pressure the home team grabbed a 2-0 lead in the 29th minute. Following a long-distance shot from Katie Jackson, the rebound came straight out in front where Radovcic tapped in the rebound for her fourth goal of the season.

After UCF led in shots in the first half, 12-3, both teams had great scoring opportunities in the first 30 minutes of the second half. SMU’s Shelby Hartweck hit the crossbar two minutes in, while the Black and Gold’s Stacie Hubbard clanked one of the post 40 seconds later.

Eventually in the 66th minute, Newsome and Marissa Diggs both fired off shots from close range that Webb got a hand on both times for the save. And SMU rang one off the crossbar again in the 71st minute as Kaitlyn Eidson struck the pipe.

However the UCF backline held on for the shutout as the Knights were on their way to a berth in the finals. They will be meeting Memphis for the second-consecutive year in the title match, as the Tigers won the crown in 2009, 3-0. It will be the third time UCF, which has won four regular-season titles, has played in the finals but it will be searching for its first tournament trophy since joining the league in 2005.