Titan women's soccer team uses big second half to return to NJCAA National Championship Tournament
The Eastern Florida State College women's soccer team is heading back to the NJCAA Division I National Championship Tournament.
The Titans scored five times in the second half to defeat Jones County Junior College 5-3 and punch their ticket back to the national championship tournament.
"I have always heard it is not how you start, it is how you finish and we had 45 minutes to prove to everyone watching and to ourselves that we can do it and we went out there and gave it our all and got the result," sophomore Bunny Shaw said.
With 41 seconds remaining before halftime Jones County Junior College scored to head into halftime with a 1-0 lead.
But the Titans came out firing as Nathali Da Silva scored her first goal of the night on an assist from Darien Davis. In the next 12 minutes Da Silva and Bunny Shaw would both score, Shaw's on a penalty kick after Da Silva was taken down in the box and Eastern Florida was up 3-1.
But Jones County was not going to go away easy, scoring twice in a three-minute span to tie the game up.
"It was a last one with the ball type mentality there in the second half," Eastern Florida State College women's soccer coach Jeff Carr said. "I knew they were going to be tough, this is the best Jones County team I have seen and they gave us all we could handle tonight. Fortunately for us, Nathali and Bunny took over."
Shaw gave the Titans the lead for good with 18 minutes remaining with a nice strike and then Da Silva netted her second hat trick of the season giving the Titans five goals.
"From the first day of practice that was the aim, to get back to the national tournament, no matter how we did it, no matter what we have gone through, expectations are high and we just have to go out and give it our all," Shaw said.
The Titans will find out who they will play in the first round of the national tournament next week.
