The Lady Lions found their way back to their winning form with a victory over the Nicholls State Colonels 5-2, on Sunday, Oct. 16. The win put Southeastern at 9-4-1 for the season, leaving them in a tie for fourth place in the Southland Conference.
The scoring was opened swiftly when the Colonel’s Keisha Brown scored off of a corner kick by Sam Etherington, taking a 1-0 advantage.
After only three minutes, Southeastern retaliated with a goal by sophomore forward/midfielder Kelsey Salcido. Southeastern added a second goal in the final seconds of the first half, when junior midfielder Karly Dagys knocked in her fourth goal of the season.
Sophomore forward Jaci Teresinski put the match out of reach for the Colonels, with a goal in the 54th minute. Less than a minute after, Salcido found the net for the second time in the game. The goal would mark Salcido’s tenth of the year, one behind the team lead held by junior forward Maiya Cooper. This also marks the first time that two players reached double-digit goals in the same season since Kim McNally and Rebecca Glueck in 2004.
“It felt great, but I don’t do it alone,” said Salcido, on scoring two goals. “I thank my team for that.”
Colonel freshman Kristy Tatom scored with just under 25 minutes left, but the effort was futile. The Lady Lions were awarded a penalty kick when Cooper was tripped down from behind in the Colonel’s goalie box. Junior midfielder/defender Sam McNally stepped up and put the ball in the net to finish the game, 5-2.
“I feel like we really picked it up from last week,” said Salcido. “We had better touches on the ball, and we connected our passes this time when we moved off the ball.”
“We’re pleased with today. We finished our opportunities and that was the difference between this weekend and last weekend,” said head coach Blake Hornbuckle. “We created a lot of opportunities and we put several home today, which really put the game out of reach.”
“We strung a couple of good passes together, which was nice because we have been having trouble keeping the ball on the ground and just finding a good rhythm,” said Dagys. “So I thought we did a decent job today, and hopefully we will keep coming up from here on out.”
Although the win was rewarding, Salcido still sees room for improvement.
“We can probably improve on putting balls in the air, getting first to them and getting the second ball and just opening it up for each other and moving off the ball,” said Salcido.