Georgia Readies for SEC, Outpaces Washington State

Frenzied. Georgia unleashed ninety minutes of frenzy on the pitch in Athens to outpace Washington State 4-1 on Sunday afternoon.

The Cougars managed to match the Dawgs for much of the first half despite the host possessing the ball most of the minutes.

“I thought today was a really solid performance and a really good team performance,” said Georgia Head Coach Kiedane McAlpine. “I thought we left some things on the table in Thursday’s game, and I thought today we executed better in our build-up in getting to the spaces we wanted to get to to get the isolations we wanted.

Senior midfielder Aly Akers broke the goose eggs on the scoreboard with the game’s first goal two minutes after entering as a sub in the 40th minute. The blast past the left post occurred one minute after a shot from graduate midfielder Dasia Torbert was swallowed up by Cougars goalkeeper Nadia Cooper.

Torbert was a menace. The Buford, GA native and Mountain View High grad, scored the first and last goals of the second half for a brace – literally.

“I thought we had a good decent first half and we had some opportunities that didn’t go right either,” said Cougars Head Coach Todd Shulenberger. “We got tired there at the end for sure. It was a long week.”

The Cougars flew in from Pullman to play Georgia Southern in Athens on Thursday. Senior Lindsey Turner scored the game-winner early in the second half (51st minute) on an assist from Lassiter High (Marietta, GA) grad Alena Watts.

Sophomore forward Nathalie Lewis entered the match in the 67th minute to provide the Cougars with fresh legs. The Arizona native provided that spark in the 70th minute with a right-to-left blast past Georgia goalkeeper Jordan Brown. It was Lewis’ first career goal.

After Lewis’ goal, the Dogs went back to hunting. In the 83rd minute, Jocelyn Chinea delivered a great ball to Margie Detrizio that the graduate transfer slotted in ahead of the foot of red-shirt senior defender Jenna Studer.

Five minutes later, Torbert delivered the brace off a corner kick from Summer Denigan to end the scoring on the day.

“I was really happy with today’s performance from a lot of different people too which made it even better,” said Coach McAlpine.

Georgia extends their winning streak to three games with South Carolina scheduled to arrive in Athens on Thursday, Sept. 19.