Women’s Soccer Wins Against USC-Aiken

MOUNT OLIVE, NC – In a match that had no official site to be played until less than 24 hours until it was to be played, the Lincoln Memorial University women’s soccer team cruised to a 5-1 win over the University of South Carolina-Aiken on Saturday to improve to 2-1 on the year.

When the 2007 schedule was set, the match was to have been played as part of a classic that was to be hosted by Mount Olive College in Mount Olive, North Carolina.  Sometime between then and a few weeks ago, one of the teams in the classic chose to drop out, leaving the host institution with no team to play.  The void went unnoticed by most of the schools involved for some time and neither LMU nor USC-Aiken really gave it much thought until several attempts by the Lady Railsplitter coaching staff to get some details on the event failed.  Finally, after a few hours of phone tag between LMU, Mount Olive College and the University of South Carolina-Aiken, the decision was made to go on with the match at Mount Olive as planned.

The Lady Railsplitters were clearly ready for the Saturday’s match.  LMU defeated the Pacers 5-1 with senior Heloisa de Oliveira (Campinas, Brazil) notching a hat trick and teammate Hanna-Mari Toivonen (Tampere, Finland) scoring the other two Lady Railsplitter goals en route to the victory.

The win not only puts the Lady Railsplitters at 2-1 overall, it sets the stage for next Saturday’s South Atlantic Conference opener against Newberry College at home on LMU’s Les Gibbs Field.  The Lady Indians will come to Harrogate having tied their two exhibitions and one of their two regular season matches.  For the Lady Splitters, they will begin their quest for their first SAC title.