University of Tennessee Athletics
Complete Team Effort Moves Tennessee On
November 05, 2014 | Soccer
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. -- Tennessee went to the locker room for halftime at the Orange Beach Sportsplex effectively dead.
Sure, the scoreboard read 1-1, but Florida had everything in its favor, including the equalizing goal just over a minute before halftime. The Volunteers were down two players, with Aaran Parry having gone down in the sixth minute and Carlyn Baldwin just before the Florida goal.
But Tennessee has been dead before.
The team needed wins in its last two games to even get here. The finale at Ole Miss went right to the last possible minute of the regular season, with a goal in the closing moments of the second overtime. The opening round game on Monday saw UT down 2-0 in the second half before a furious rally gave Tennessee a 3-2 win over Alabama.
"I'm so lucky to coach this group," head coach Brian Pensky said. "We felt coming into this season that we could be a great team. We played one heck of a schedule. At one point we had four losses and those teams have five losses between all of them, so our confidence was shaken as a team and we sputtered a little bit in the league. But what has happened over the last couple of weeks is they have grown that confidence back that they came into the fall with."
The second half took everything Tennessee had to keep the game even. With Parry and Baldwin on the sideline, Kathryn Culhane, Colleen Gawkins and Meaghan Mulligan played solid minutes to give UT depth. Kiah Allen and Josie Jennings played extensively. Whatever it took, Tennessee's bench provided.
"That says everything about this team right now," Pensky said. Their resiliency and their want for our season to continue on and not stop Allie Sirna and Brittney Wade and Cheyanne Spade's careers, they want this ride to last as long as possible."
And Tennessee got plenty from those players as well. Spade's goal in the third minute seemed to shock Florida, giving the Volunteers the edge mentally and on the scoreboard. Wilkinson went so hard, she bent two supposedly unbendable knee braces. Sirna and Wade anchored the backline with more clears in traffic than you could count.
All that effort complimented five saves from Jamie Simmons and sent the game to overtime. Once there, Tennessee continued to hold serve, taking scoring chances when they emerged, but always ready to stave off the counterattack.
At the end of two overtime periods, the score still read 1-1, the game officially in he books as a draw. Considering the circumstances, that could be called a win. But penalty kicks were still ahead to determine if UT had at least one more game in its season.
"I told them that the result was the result," Pensky said of his message before PKs. "We just tied the No. 9-RPI team in the country and we just put ourselves in a better place for the NCAA Tournament, so this was all about whether we get to stay in Orange Beach for a couple more days. So, the result had already occurred, we just wanted to go out and have some fun and see if we can stay for a couple more days."
Wilkinson, Allen, Neal, Suzanne Capocaccia and Spade all found the back of the net in PKs. Though Tennessee goalkeeper Jamie Simmons did not make a save against the six shots she faced, Pensky saw the mental edge his keeper had affect the two Florida shots that missed, including the one that advanced Tennessee to its first SEC Tournament semifinal since 2011.
"When we were at Florida, she stopped a penalty kick and I bet Florida's kids hadn't forgotten that," said Pensky. "So you see two kids, one pushes it over, one pushes it wide and we get to stick around the beach two more days."
It was just another chapter in the Tennessee-Florida rivalry in the SEC Tournament. UT won its first SEC soccer crown of any type with a 2-1 2OT win in the 2002 final. A year later, Tennessee repeated by winning 7-6 on penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw. In 2004, a 2-1 2OT game went the Gators' way. There was a 1-0 loss to Florida in 2OT in the opening round in 2009. And now, another chapter written.
"They're fighting for each other they don't want their season to end," Pensky said. "To coach that group, I'm a lucky guy and a happy guy."
