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East Carolina and Memphis Advance to C-USA Championship
Regular Season Co-Champs Will Meet in Title Game

	Ashley Berra

Nov. 7, 2008

• Championship Central

Memphis earned a repeat trip to the C-USA Championship final and the Tigers will face their co-regular season champs East Carolina in Sunday's title game at 1 p.m. Central. The game will be televised live on CBS College Sports from the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium in Houston, Texas.

Semifinal #2 - (2) Memphis 2, (3) UCF 0

Memphis earned a repeat trip to the C-USA Championship final with a 2-0 shutout of UCF in tonight's semifinal match at the Rice Track & Soccer Stadium.

With less than 10 minutes remaining in regulation, Memphis put the first score on the board when Ashley Berra scored off an assist from Melissa Smith.

Seven minutes later, C-USA Player of the Year Vendula Strnadova took a shot that was stopped by UCF keeper Aline Reis, who lost control for a moment and Krista Turner swept in for a direct shot at the insurance goal and her first score of the season.

Reis completed her evening with nine saves, which tied for the second most she had in a game all year. She moved her 2008 total to 96 saves, placing her sixth on the UCF single-season chart.

The Knights saw their record fall to 13-5-3 and will hope for an at-large berth into the NCAA Championship when the 64-team field is announced Monday night.

With the win, the Tigers improved to 14-4-2 on the year and will now face East Carolina in the finals Sunday at 1 p.m. CT. The championship match will be televised live by CBS College Sports. The two teams shared the 2008 C-USA regular season title and played to a 3-3 double overtime tie earlier this year.

Semifinal #1 - (1) East Carolina 2, (5) Colorado College 1 (OT)

Top-seeded East Carolina and Colorado College played into overtime, when the Pirates took advantage of an own goal to defeat CC, 2-1, Friday in the semifinals of the 2008 C-USA Women's Soccer Championship at Rice Track/Soccer Stadium. ECU improves to 14-3-4 on the season and advances to its first conference final, while the Tigers fall to 13-7-2.

Colorado College got on the scoreboard first as the Tigers won a free kick that Molly Uyenishi put into the box. Pirate keeper and senior Amber Campbell snagged the rebound initially, but lost it at the last second and Lauren Talbot was there to slot the ball into the empty net for a 1-0 Colorado College lead in the 34th minute.

East Carolina answered less than two minutes later when Alexis Foltz took one of six first-half corner kicks and found Jessica Swanson, who deflected the ball to freshman Jessica Woodward. Woodward then powered the ball into the open left side of the net to tie the game. The contest would sit 1-1 at the half.

After the squads played the ball through the midfield to start the first overtime, ECU freshman Rachel Fuller took a touch to the right side of the box and crossed the ball. Wilcox then deflected the ball off a defender and past goalkeeper Caitlin Hulyo, securing a Pirate trip to the Championship Game.

"That was just a phenomenal soccer match," ECU head coach Rob Donnenwirth said. "We played so well in the first half but we knew Colorado College would come out on fire in the second half. There was a lot of end-to-end soccer out there today and we came out on top. I am so proud of our ladies."