Huntingdon men’s soccer advances to GSAC finals

LaGRANGE, Ga. – Rusty Cowley scored two goals and Dallas Thomas had two assists to lift the Huntingdon men's soccer team in the Great South Athletic Conference semifinals on Friday.

The Hawks knocked off Piedmont 2-1 and will face top-seeded Maryville (13-4-2) in the GSAC finals on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

"This was a huge win for us," Huntingdon coach Kevin Ray said. "We would have liked to have had a couple more wins in the regular season, but that didn't work out. With seven games left in the regular season, our goal was to keep working hard and see what we could do at the end of the season.

"We played a good Piedmont team tonight, and it could have gone either way. This time it went our way."

This was the third meeting between the two teams this season. The two teams tied 2-2 in double overtime on Oct. 1 and Piedmont won 2-1 on Oct. 22.

"Both teams know about each other and knew what to expect," Ray said. "We knew it wasn't going to be a high-scoring game and that it was going to be another battle."

Huntingdon (5-11-2) struck first as Cowley and Thomas teamed up for the first goal, less than 15 minutes into the game. Piedmont (7-9-2) answered with a Chase Rivers goal early in the second half.

With a little more than seven minutes left in the game, Cowley gave the Hawks the lead off of a corner kick from Thomas.

"Rusty did a great job, as did Dallas," Ray said. "They were a great combination today."