Gator soccer secures their first win of the season in the home-opener as they fend off the Towson Tigers in a 4-2 thriller.<\/p>\n
Tied at 0, the Gators would have to deal with another weather delay due to lightning in the area, just eleven minutes into the first half.<\/p>\n
Talking to sophomore defender Skye Barnes about how the team kept up the energy during the weather delay,<\/p>\n
she said, \u201cI feel like FSU was a good practice for us because we had multiple rain delays throughout that game and just keeping the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnes scored her first collegiate goal from a corner kick to give the Gators a 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing with each other helped a lot\u201d Barnes added.<\/p>\n
The game resumed over 2 hours after the initial stoppage. Similar to the Florida State game, the opponents would strike first.<\/p>\n
Just 8 minutes back into the start of action, Towson junior Sydney Feiler found the back of the net.<\/p>\n
Scoring her first two goals of her collegiate career and dishing out two assists, freshmen forward Katie Johnston could not stop getting involved in the attacking third of the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into this game I knew I had to make a difference,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cThere was no choice because we had to win this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have really good momentum after that and i\u2019m excited to see what we do Sunday\u201d Johnston added.<\/p>\n
When asked about Johnston\u2019s performance, Bohon explained \u201cWe\u2019ve seen it so that didn\u2019t surprise anybody on the Gator sideline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bohon continued, \u201cFrom a recruiting standpoint, we had so many people come up to us and ask where we found her.\u201d<\/p>\n
After spending the first three seasons as a defender, senior forward Njeri Butts scored her first career goal, giving the Gators a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Talking with coach Bohon after the game about Butts\u2019 performance, Bohon said \u201chonestly were not surprised. She can be one of the best forwards and personalities in the SEC.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve seen her start this senior season with a real energy and emotion\u201d Bohon stated.<\/p>\n
The Gators look to take this positive momentum into their Sunday matchup. They close out the week facing in-state rival North Florida.<\/p>\n
All home games at Donald R. Dizney Stadium are free to attend. The game will also be streamed on SEC Network +. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Category: Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gator Sports<\/a>, Gators Soccer<\/a>, NCAA<\/a>, Soccer<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gator soccer secures their first win of the season in the home-opener as they fend off the Towson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[52173,52169,52170,52171,52172,49,48,6389,561,82],"class_list":["post-88075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-gatorsoccer","tag-katiejohnston","tag-njeributts","tag-samanthabohon","tag-skyebarnes","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-gators","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}