UAB Eliminated from NCAA Tournament

Tara Kidwell

The UAB women's soccer team had its dream season end on Sunday afternoon as the Blazers fell to host and No. 11 national seed Tennessee, 1-0, in a heartbreaker at the UT Soccer Complex.

The Blazers, participating in their first NCAA Tournament in school history, saw their school-best eight-game winning streak snapped and lost for the first time since a 4-1 loss to Saint Louis on Oct. 17 in Birmingham. UAB ends its season at 16-6-1. The Lady Vols (17-4-2) advanced to the Sweet 16 to face Ohio State next weekend in Columbus, Ohio. The Buckeyes blanked Detroit, 3-0, on Sunday.

"Tennessee plays a different style than we do and in the first half we tried to match their style and that never works real well when that is not what you do," said UAB head coach Paul Harbin. "In the second half we just came out and tried to do what we do, which is possess the ball and knock it around and got them to try to get them to chase a little bit," said Harbin. "We wanted to make certain that we were attacking and I think we did a good job of that in the second half."





The Blazers dodged an early bullet as goalkeeper Katie Forbis made a diving save on a Kayla Lockaby shot just over a minute into the match. Lockaby had another scoring chance roughly 10 minutes later but her shot sailed high to keep the game scoreless. Forbis wound up with seven saves in the first half

Tennessee controlled the tempo from the start and had the ball on UAB's end of the field for the majority of the first 15 minutes of the match. The Lady Volunteers finally broke through as senior Keeley Dowling rifled a shot into the top right corner of the net following a corner kick by teammate Sue Flamini at 24:54 to put Tennessee up 1-0.

UAB's best scoring chance in the half came after a free kick by Briana McCarty with under four minutes remaining as Jenny Rynders took a shot from a few yards in front of the goal, but UT goalkeeper Vanessa Phillips-Bosshart made the save to preserved the lead. The Lady Vols held their 1-0 lead at the half.

The Blazers seemed to have a favorable scoring opportunity with 15 minutes left in the match as Tara Kidwell streaked down the far sideline with a Tennessee defender chasing her, but Kidwell was pulled down from behind inside the box and inexplicably no foul call was made. Kidwell protested the no-call, and was given a yellow card.

Jill Porto had a fairly open look at the goal with just under two minutes remaining in the half but Phillips-Bosshart made a save at the left post, and then Porto fired another shot high with a 1:30 left. Porto headed a shot to the far right post but Phillips-Bosshart made another critical save.

Tennessee out-shot UAB, 17-13, but the Blazers' offense got better as the game went on and UAB's defense held Tennessee to just five shots in the second half.