Women's soccer team advances to national tournament semifinals

With the clock ticking down on the season, the Eastern Florida State College women's soccer team responded with the goal they needed to stay alive in the NJCAA Division I National Championship Tournament.

Freshman Laura Cetina saw the ball head her way in front of the goal and rose up, heading it into the back of the net with two minutes and 14 seconds remaining to give the Titans a 2-0 win over Hill College in the NJCAA Division I National Championship Tournament at Daytona State College.

"We knew we needed to score two in order to stay alive," Cetina said. "Just had to keep playing and got the goal."

The 2-0 win gave Eastern Florida State College the Pool C victory which also clinched a spot in the national tournament semifinals.

It didn't look like the Titans would be able to get the result in the first half as the two teams traded shots and went into halftime scoreless.

But with 36:30 left in the match, a Hill College player picked up their second yellow card to put the Titans a man up for the rest of the match.

The play seemed to spark the Eastern Florida State College squad who picked up the pace and tested the Hill College defense throughout the final 35 minutes.

Jessica Debiasse got the Titans on the board at the 58:30 mark, taking a pass, settling it and looking up to see she had an opening. The strike went right into the upper right part of the net. It was the defender's first goal of the season.

The Titans kept the pressure on as Kirsty Woodacre, Kurumi Arakawa and the defensive unit all made sure the ball stayed on the offensive end for much of the second half as Eastern Florida State College shot 16 times in the second half alone and 28 for the game with 10 corner kicks, eight coming in the second half.

But as the clock ticked down, the Titans could not seem to get the goal they needed.

That is until Cetina's play which started with a nice corner by Lena Stevens that went to the back post, a defender headed it toward the middle and Cetina did the rest.

The Titans would make sure Hill College did not get another chance, running out the clock to advance to the semifinals for the fifth straight season.

"I was proud of our girls reaction to adversity," Eastern Florida State College women's soccer coach Scott Carswell said. "48 hours ago, we were about as low as you could get. The girls met, came up with a plan on how we were going to play today and executed."

Eastern Florida State College will play No. 2 seed Seminole State College in the second semifinal at 3 p.m. Friday at Daytona State College.