No. 3 Sam Houston State Advances to Championship Match
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CONWAY, Ark. – No. 3 Sam Houston State defeated No. 2 Houston Baptist in the second round of the 2015 Southland Conference Tournament Friday at Bill Stephens Soccer Complex to advance to the championship match.
Sam Houston State junior forward Allie Johnson scored a penalty kick in the upper right corner of the goal to give the Bearkats a 1-0 lead at the 19:31 mark in the first half. The goal was Johnson’s seventh goal of the season.
Johnson picked up her eighth goal of the season on a backwards header for a 2-0 lead over the Huskies. Mariah Titus lined up the corner kick, the ball was deflected to Johnson for the goal.
Houston Baptist finished with six shots on goal, but the Huskies were unable to find the back of the net against Sam Houston State goalkeeper Kylie Hambleton.
No. 3 Sam Houston State will take on No. 4 Southeastern Louisiana Sunday, Nov. 8 at 1 p.m. at Bill Stephens Soccer Complex on the campus of Central Arkansas for the championship match.
The Bearkats made their only championship appearance in 2005 on a 1-0 overtime loss to Northwestern State. The Lions and the Bearkats have never met in the tournament championship match.
The championship game will be broadcast by ESPN3, available via WatchESPN.com and the WatchESPN app. David Saltzman and two-time first team all-Southland performer Laura Sadler are set to call the action.
2015 Southland Conference Tournament Quotes
Sam Houston State Head Coach Tom Brown
On junior forward Allie Johnson
“I thought she was fantastic. She has done well throughout the season. She has come through in the last several games for us. She stepped up and hit the penalty and I think was confident from last night. She’s a big part of what we do here. We’re very thankful she’s playing for us.”
On what it means for the team to be in the championship
“It lets the players know when they came in during Summer 2, doing work on their own, that the training was worth it. This is ultimately where they wanted to get. We’ve had some challenges along the way but we were able to get through those. We’ll have an opportunity Sunday afternoon to hopefully fulfill the last part of those hopes and dreams.”
On the success of the offense of recent
“We are creating opportunities. We have been patient, continued to work and knew the goals would come. I think we were under a lot of pressure. You could tell we went 110 minutes the night before but I thought the mentality of getting in there and battling and playing as hard as we could, the girls did well.”
Sam HoustonState Junior Forward Allie Johnson:
On continued progression of the offense…
“I know shooting didn’t go in our favor at the beginning of the season but we’ve worked on it over and over. We’ve gotten better and better. To see it working at the most important time of the season is a blessing for all of us. We’re happy it’s starting to fall into place as each game becomes more important.”
On what it means to advance to the championship match…
“Since I’ve been here, we haven’t been to the finals. We lost in the first or second rounds so we haven’t had the opportunity to feel what it’s like to be competing for a championship. It’s a really cool feeling. It hasn’t all hit me right now, but I know tomorrow, it will feel great.”
Houston Baptist Head Coach Misty Jones
On the loss
“It’s a fantastic group of girls they certainly worked hard. It’s tough because in the second half of the game we dominated. It’s tough to walk away without scoring a goal. Credit Sam Houston they did a terrific job, they had a lot of hard workers that really put in the effort and put us under pressure in the first half. We had that penalty called against that then it was just us trying to dig our way out of a hole from there.”
On the Sam Houston defense
“(Kyle Hambleton) had a great game for sure. We talk about it at tournaments when your goalkeeper comes up big. She made some fantastic saves. Sam cleared a couple off the line for us. We certainly put them under the pressure but there defense handled it well.”