Carolina freshmen continue to lead offensive attack

Youth continues to be the story for Coach Shelley Smith and her South Carolina women's soccer team. As the Gamecocks finish up their first weekend of SEC play, another freshmen who can be deemed the team's MVP of the two game set. Last week, freshman Kayla Grimsley scored a goal in four consecutive games, becoming the first freshman Gamecock to do so since 1999. This week, it was freshman Natalie Aaron who played hero for Carolina, scoring her first career goal, a game-winning header, against Tennessee on Friday night. She then followed that performance by tying the game with her second career goal in Sunday afternoon's matchup against Georgia.

"To come up with such an important goal two games in a row, especially as a freshman, is just fantastic," said Coach Shelley Smith after Sunday's 1-1 tie with Georgia. "It will give her that much more confidence as she continues to earn more playing time."

In the first game of the weekend against the struggling Volunteers, junior Blakely Mattern was able to score the first goal of the game on a header in the 42nd minute. The game was tied in the second half due to a South Carolina own goal in the 67th minute, but it would only be six minutes until Natalie Aaron would change that.

"It was an exceptional ball by Kayla… I just had to run with it," Aaron said after her game-winner.

With the win, USC has beaten Tennessee in two consecutive years for the first time in program history. The struggling Vols, who are typically known as a perennial powerhouse in the SEC, currently stand at 3-5-0. Friday night's game was the first time Tennessee has ever played Carolina as an unranked team.

In the second game of the weekend for Carolina, the team reluctantly walked away with their third tie of the year, bringing their record to 7-1-3. After a very physical first half in which nine fouls were recorded between the two teams (8 of which were against Georgia), the Gamecocks trailed 1-0.

"Going into the half, we just had to change our mentality," said Coach Smith. "We're the team with the winning record and we're the home team and we just had to play like that."

Natalie Aaron listened to her coach. In the 73rd minute, Kayla Grimsley found her fellow freshman teammate who put it through the left side of the net.

The overtime was controlled by the Carolina offense. In both overtimes combined, the Gamecocks outnumbered the Volunteers in shots by a 5-0 count.

"In overtime, both teams were exhausted," said Smith. We wanted to keep our fresh players up top. We started to run at them a bit and I thought we did a good job to take advantage of that."

The perennially solid Carolina defense also had a solid defense. Led by Junior Blakely Mattern and first year starter Mollie Patton in goal, the defense did not allow a goal in the second half of either game.

Currently, the Gamecocks are in second in the SEC East with a 1-0-1 conference record. They continue their SEC play next weekend when they go on the road against the Kentucky Wildcats and the Vanderbilt Commodores. USC was a mediocre 3-4-2 in 2007 away from home and will need a strong performance against the 6-3-1 Commodores.

Coach Smith is very aware of the challenge. "Now, we have to go and take care of business on the road," she said.