FOLEY, Ala. – A goal by University of South Alabama junior Ashlynn Jones (Pickerington, Ohio) in the 80th minute was all the Jaguars needed in a 1-0 victory over Troy Friday in the quarterfinals of the Sun Belt Conference Women's Soccer Tournament at the Foley Sports Tourism Complex.

The top-seeded Jags improve to 13-5-1 on the year and move on to the semifinals where they'll face No. 4 seed Appalachian State Friday night at 7 p.m. The Trojans end their season at 7-10-3.

Wednesday marked the 11th straight time a game in the series was decided by one goal or fewer.

"It was a very tight game, but every time we play Troy, certainly since I've been here and even before I got here results have been one-goal games, so it was what we expected," said USA head coach Graham Winkworth. "They had a few more shots than they did previously and we had a few less, but the shots that we created were better opportunities than maybe we created last time we played. We just knew we had to play a little bit riskier in that sense.

"It was a tight, well-contested match that could have gone either way."

Jones took advantage of a Trojan error to account for the only score of the match. She intercepted a pass back to the keeper and eluded Mikki Lewis to break the scoreless deadlock.

"It was unfortunate on Troy that the goal came from a defensive error on their part because they defended extremely well," Winkworth stated. "We talk about the forwards anticipating passes, and she anticipated a pass, jumped on the end of it, took around the goalie and put it calmly in the back of the net. It was a well-taken goal and fortunately won us the game."

The goal was just the Jaguars' second shot on goal the entire match. Just over a minute later, junior Chardé Hannah (Tupelo, Miss.) got free on a breakaway, but her attempt was saved by Lewis.

"Sometimes statistics don't show everything; we had some crosses that we hit at the same time as a Troy player, and if we were a half-a-second quicker, it's a tap-in, and things like that," Winkworth noted. "We had more opportunities than maybe the shot count suggested, but Troy are well organized defensively and Coach (Jason) Hamilton does a great job there. We knew it was going to be difficult to score goals and fortunately we were able to nick one at the end."

In the second half, Troy outshot South Alabama 4-1 and had three corner kicks in an 11-minute span, but only put one shot on target, and just over eight minutes after the Trojans' last corner kick, Jones scored the game winner.

USA freshman goalkeeper Justice Stanford (The Colony, Texas) made four saves in net to record her ninth clean sheet of the season, while Lewis had three stops.

"We were pretty solid defensively," Winkworth said. "I thought we were a little impatient with our attacking from the defensive players; we were trying our passes out the back a little too much and we started going direct. Troy created a couple of good opportunities but outside of that, I thought we defended pretty well. Our team defending overall was pretty good."

Friday's opponent defeated South Alabama 4-3 in double overtime in the regular-season finale in Boone, N.C. The two teams met in last year's Sun Belt semifinals; the Jags advanced 10-9 on penalty kicks after a 2-2 draw.

"We haven't beaten them in two games so we know we're in for a tough game," Winkworth said. "Appalachian State is a good team and they're an emotional-type team. They'll be putting in a lot of tackles so we have to match their emotion and hopefully add the quality of soccer to that and have some success."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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