BOX SCORES 

MOBILE, Ala. – No. 3 seed South Alabama earned a hard-fought 1-0 win over
No. 2 Middle Tennessee as the Sun Belt's two hottest teams clashed in semifinal action Thursday night at the league's Soccer Championship on the campus of South Alabama. Jaguar junior Jenn Edgar scored the game winning goal in the eighth minute leading the team to a berth in the 2005 Sun Belt Conference Championship Game on Saturday at 1 p.m. versus North Texas.

"This was a big of a win that I have been a part of since I started here," Jaguar head coach Mike Varga said. We played a great game against Florida International yesterday and I knew we wouldn't match that same intensity tonight, but our team fought hard and we got the win. I am really proud of our team."

With the win USA (12-4-1, 6-2 SBC) advances to face No. 1 seed North Texas
(15-3-2, 8-1 SBC) in Saturday's championship match.

The game opened as both teams were out firing from the get-go. USA had a couple of good looks in the opening minutes but was unable to get a shot. Middle Tennessee came right back, but it was a steaking Edgar down the left side with a pass from senior Allison Brubeck and sophomore Jennifer Beckwith that scored the game winner. Edgar took the pass and fired a shot past Blue Raider goalkeeper Danielle Perreault for the score. It was the fifth game in a row that the Jaguars have scored a goal in the first ten minutes of the game and it was Edgar's fourth goal in the past five games.

"That was a great goal by Edgar," Varga said. She took a direct pass from Alli (Brubeck) and Jennifer Beckwith got a foot on it and she scored. We put Edgar up top a few games ago and it has worked out very well."

The teams continued to fight hard throughout the first half. USA had five other shot opportunities in the first half, while MT was unsuccessful on seven. Middle Tennessee led the first half in shots and corners.

Both teams had ample opportunities in the second half, but credit both Perreault and Langford for making the key stops. MT had nine shots in the second half and USA had five. The Blue Raiders tallied eight corner kicks and were unsuccessful on all, while the Jaguars had five. Langford had eight saves for USA and Perreault had four.

Individually, Edgar tallied a game high five shots and four on goal. Sophomore Kelly Tarrant added four shots. Middle Tennessee was led by Rebecca Rodriguez with four shots and two on goal.

Saturday's championship game is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. at "The Cage" and
can be seen live on the Sun Belt's website www.sunbeltsports.org.

"We lost to North Texas earlier in the year and at that point we knew we had something special with this team." We are going out there on Saturday and going to give it our all and no matter what the score is at the end of the game, we are going to hang our heads high," Varga said.