Date Posted: 11/8/2007

KENNESAW, Ga. - Host and No. 1 seed Kennesaw State avenged a pair of losses, one this year and one from a year ago, by dispatching the ETSU Buccaneers by the score of 2-0 in an Atlantic Sun Women's Soccer Championship Semifinal match on Thursday. The Owls' lone loss in conference play in 2007 came at ETSU and at the 2006 A-Sun Championship, also as the top seed, the Owls lost in the semifinals.

A pair of First-Team All-Atlantic Sun members, Maylee Attin-Johnson and Caitlin Dingle, provided the offense as each scored in the first half. All-Freshman goalkeeper Katie Piotrowski, combined with a strong backline of defense, anchored by Whitney Marler, limited the ETSU's potent duo of Jordan Monty and Teri Miller to zero shots and the Buccaneers as a whole to just five shots, of which, only two made it on net.

Johnson opened the scoring with her sixth goal of the year. She received a pass from Beth Meadors, beat a trio of ETSU defenders and deposited her shot into the upper net.

Less than seven minutes later, Dingle matched teammate Annie Phillips and Jacksonville’s Keri Zwikker with her 16th goal of the season to tie for the conference lead and give the Owls a two-goal advantage. The Owls' defense made the lead stand up by thwarting the few chances ETSU would create during the match. The Buccaneers could not muster even a single shot in the final 61 minutes of play.

Like in the regular-season, the Owls will face the Mercer Bears with a title on the line. On Halloween in Macon, Ga., the Owls ended the Bears' nine-game win streak to claim the regular-season title with a 3-1 victory. As stake on Saturday, at 6:00pm, the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, something neither team has claimed in their history.

Saturday's final will mark the fourth time in the last five years that the top two seeds will square off. In the previous three meetings, the No. 1 seed has emerged as champions twice. The all-Georgia final will be first in the 14-year history of the Atlantic Sun Women's Soccer Championship. Nine of the previous 13 finals, including the 2006 final of Jacksonville vs Stetson, featured two schools from the same state, but this year will be first time the state represented will not be Florida. With host Kennesaw State in the final, it marks the 11th time in Championship history that the host has played in the Championship match. In those 10 previous occurrences, the host has won the title six times, most recently in 2004 when Campbell advanced past UCF, 3-1 on penalty kicks.

The Atlantic Sun Conference is a 12-member league committed to Building Winners for Life, with a focus on academic and athletic integrity and a balance between the two for the student-athlete, and maintaining a high level of sportsmanship. Headquartered in Macon, Ga., the A-Sun encompasses six of the top eight media markets in the Southeast. The A-Sun consists of some of the most dynamic private and public institutions in the region: Belmont University, Campbell University, East Tennessee State University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Gardner-Webb University, Jacksonville University, Kennesaw State University, Lipscomb University, Mercer University, University of North Florida, University of South Carolina Upstate and Stetson University.

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