In an exciting and well fought game, the Georgia Southern Eagles took on the Appalachian State Mountaineers at Eagle Field for senior night. In a final score of 1-0, the Eagles improve to 6-5-3 overall.

It was a tough match between these Sun Belt rivals, which resulted in a scoreless match for 89 minutes. With the crowd and team preparing for the end of regulation with an unsettling 0-0 tie, sophomore Gonzalo Talavera unexpectedly made a quick goal, in a last minute attempt for victory, with an assist from Aldair Cortes.

In the first half, possession swiftly went back and forth, with both teams coming right out the gate setting an aggressive tone on defense.

“It’s kind of surreal when you score with six seconds left in a soccer game. It’s not basketball or football… six seconds in soccer is nothing,” Head Coach John Murphy said.

Coming out of the second half, GS maintained possession for majority of the rest of regulation, with multiple failed goal attempts. The game was laden with fouls, with each team accumulating eight total. There were three yellow cards shown in the second half alone.

“I thought the performance was workmanlike, the quality wasn’t there,” Murphy said. “I have a lot of respect for Appalachian State, they have a very good team, and probably deserved to get out of here with something… But we took our chance and made the most of it.”

The honored seniors were Javier Carbonell, Luis Caraballo, Sam Choi, Torgeir Fjaer, Sebastian Gregersen, along with team manager John Williams and assistant coach Emil Laursen.

With this win, GS improves to 2-0-1 in conference play, and first in the Sun Belt, followed by Georgia State in second.

The Eagles will travel to Conway, South Carolina to take on Coastal Carolina, last year’s Sun Belt Champions, to finish out the regular season on Friday. The game will take place at 7 p.m.

Amanda Arnold, The George-Anne Sports Candidate, gasports@georgiasouthern.edu