Women’s soccer team rebounds from winless start

After going winless over the first few weeks of the regular season, the Georgia State women's soccer team (3-6) has now won two of their last three matches. In the process, they made head coach Don Martelli seem clairvoyant after he declared that the Panthers would rebound over the weekend. Last weekend, the Panthers earned their first victory of the season against Georgia Southern after a 0-5 start to the season, before losing to the University of Georgia in Athens on Sunday, Sept. 11. It was jarring to watch the Panthers start off uncharacteristically slow because of their usual hot starts to the regular season. Prior to this season, the Panthers had gone 24-8-2 during the non-conference portion of the schedule. However, according to Martelli, the Panthers are dominating in just about every category except at the end of the game with the result." According to Head Coach Domenic Martelli, a couple of factors played a role in the Panthers early losing streak. Among them is that the Panthers played six of their first eight on the road against a tough slate of teams."When you look at the games, we've played basically two top-25 teams in Villanova and Georgia and we were playing one of the hottest teams in our state, Mercer. " In the week, leading up to the Panthers' slate of weekend matches, Martelli still remained optimistic about the Panthers outlook. "Beating a good Georgia Southern team and playing really well against Georgia has allowed us to enter into a different frame of mind," said Martelli. "What has happened during the early part of the season will push us forward."

Martelli spoke glowingly of Evans and declared that this week would be a perfect opportunity for Evans, last season's CAA-rookie of the year, to dish a few assists or to score a goal herself. The team and sophomore forward Jewel Evans, in particular, lived up to Martelli's expectations by pounding out a 3-2 win over UNC Asheville. With the score knotted up 2-2 in the 88th minute, Evans scored the game-winning goal courtesy of an assist from forward Sarah Bennett. The Panthers capped off the weekend with a 4-2 victory over Gardner Webb on Sunday, which began with Evans scoring her first goal of the game and her third of the season. While Jewel Evans found her scoring touch over the weekend, getting everybody else on the same page is a critical key to the Panthers season. Said Martelli, "In some cases, some of the returners have taken over a game and played consistently. In other games some of the newcomers have come out. For example, a goal and an assist by our two freshmen (Kierra Nelson and Nikki Fedele) against UGA." According to Martelli, the weekend's matches were also going to be a great tune-up for the beginning of conference play for the Panthers. "Everything we do is with conference games as our goal. Everything we did in the off-season and in the preseason in the first part of the year, in our non-conference schedule is to get us back to the conference tournament," said Martelli. "The first step in that once conference season starts is our conference weekends and there's not one weekend more important than the other, there's not one weekend harder or easier than the other." Regardless of whether it's a non-conference match or a familiar conference foe, the Panthers have to improve on playing complete games and not letting their foot off the pedal once they've taken control of a match. Said Martelli, "Game's aren't won and lost in 50 out of the 90 minutes. They're won throughout the whole 90 minutes," The Panthers return to action on Friday, Sept. 23 for their first Colonial Athletic Association in-conference match of the season against Drexel.