March 2, 2021

Eagles welcome Lions to McCown Field Thursday

When the Eagles take to the pitch on Thursday night at McCown Field, they will face a familiar foe in hopes of getting on the winning track for 2021.

Mars Hill

0-2, 0-2 SAC

Carson-Newman

1-1, 1-1 SAC

Final	1	2	T
Mars Hill (0-2, 0-2 SAC)	0	0	0
Carson-Newman (1-1, 1-1 SAC)	3	3	6

Game Notes (PDF)

Video: Simon Duffy Interview

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – When the Eagles take to the pitch on Thursday night at McCown Field, they will face a familiar foe in hopes of getting on the winning track for 2021. Carson-Newman (0-1, 0-1 SAC) open the gates of McCown Field and welcome the Mars Hill Lions (0-1, 0-1 SAC) to Jefferson City for a 5:00 p.m. kickoff.

There is a limit of 50 fans allowed in attendance at McCown Field at Harvey Stadium in accordance with the updated C-N Athletics attendance policy.

Thursday will see the Eagles playing back-to-back home matches to start their season for the first time since 2017 when they faced Ferris State and won 2-0 before hosting Georgia College and taking the 5-1 win.

"It's another game for us. Unfortunately, we were very far from our best against LMU in various aspects: passing, speed of game, etc. was all off the mark," Duffy said. "I'm hoping we can continue developing this team and get a result from our match."

When matching up with the Lions, the Eagles are 11-0-0 since 2009, but head coach Simon Duffy knows that every matchup is a 90-minute-long battle, and a win is not automatically guaranteed no matter prior success. He wants to see what his team is fully capable of after a less-than-ideal performance last Thursday to start the season.

As for the Eagles in the early stages of their spring 2021 campaign, freshman Abbie Zander (Baneberry, Tenn.) notched her first career collegiate goal in the 14^th minute when fellow freshman Molly Bukiewicz (Beavercreek, Ohio) served up the timely assist off the hands of LMU's Costa. After that, the game continued going back-and-forth until LMU leveled the scoring off a goal from Jessica Cravero in the 61^st minute.

Both teams could not push across another goal in regulation, so two 10-minute overtime periods were needed to settle the score. LMU extended their pressure and momentum from the end of regulation and found themselves in a perfect spot to win the game with under 30 seconds on the clock.

With only a mere 24.2 seconds left on the clock, LMU's Rachel Taylor found her way behind the Eagles defense and tallied a glorious game-winner over the gloves of freshman Lilly Ebner (Hohentengen, Germany). This was the first time that Carson-Newman had lost a game in double overtime since 2014 when Lincoln Memorial was once again the victors, but by a score of 4-3 on that night.

Mars Hill comes into Thursday's match after suffering their first SAC loss in 2021 against Tusculum. The Lions were outshot 20-2 in the game, making both attempts on goal and making five more total saves than the Pioneers (7-2). The Lions also were able to secure four total corner kicks throughout the contest but could not find the back of the net during the entire 90 minutes.

"Our players are comfortable playing at home and having so many new players mean we hope to get off to winning ways. It's always a battle when we face Mars Hill no matter the season," Duffy said. "There is a lot of areas we need to improve on from last week to get a result on Thursday. We need our speed of play and intensity for the whole 90 minutes. The speed of play has to be a lot better."

When C-N and Mars Hill last met, it was October of 2019 and the Eagles were able to secure the 3-0 victory, making their scoring margin over the Lions a whopping 41-6 since 2009. At the time, junior Emilee Futrell (Wilson, N.C.) scored a pair of goals after sophomore Elena Propst (Maiden, N.C.) pushed the first goal across early on to open the scoring for the Eagles.

Thursday's match is set for a 5:00 p.m. kickoff from McCown Field. There will be live stats and a live stream of the action via cneagles.com/live.

-CN-