Morehead State celebrated the careers of senior soccer student-athletes Caitlyn Burdine, Colleen Swift and Katie Kiolbassa Sunday in the regular-season finale versus UT Martin. Unfortunately, the Skyhawks scored in the 16th minute and it held up as the Eagles fell 1-0.
MSU (4-9-4, 2-4-2 OVC) will now enter the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament where it will play as one of the lower four seeds in the opening round Friday night at a neutral site. UTM improved to 10-5-1 and finished 6-2 in the league to claim a share of the title.
Burdine played in 74 career matches, while Kiolbassa has appeared in 73. Swift had some injuries but still managed to help out the team in 46 career matches.
"These three seniors have been through a lot here, and I am so proud of them for the way they have competed and represented Morehead State," said head coach Warren Lipka. "All three played very hard, like they always do, today and I just wish we could have generated some more chances and had an opportunity to send them out with a positive result.
"But we are in the tournament now, and anything can happen. We are going to get mentally and physically prepared for whomever we face."
UTM scored the lone goal at 15:28. A short corner kick was played in before Kamryn Chappell and Izzy Patterson fed Emely van der Vliet for a shot from in front of the Eagles' net that slipped past MSU keeper Michelle Jerantowski.
Morehead State had trouble getting many opportunities to score as it only had one shot on goal and five total while UTM shot it 11 times, including seven on goal. The Eagles did lead in shots in the final 45 minutes, however, 4-2.
The Eagles' best chance came at 75:39 when Swift slammed a shot from 10 yards away in the center of the field, but it went directly to the arms of Skyhawk netminder Erica Myers. Swift also had another shot earlier in the match that was off target.
