A pair of goals from senior All-American Tahnai Annis gave the No. 23 University of Florida soccer team (15-6, 7-4 SEC) a 2-0 win over Georgia (12-6-2, 6-3-2 SEC) Wednesday in the final match of the opening day of play of the Southeastern Conference Tournament at the Orange Beach SportsPlex.
| Wednesday’s SEC Tournament Scores | |
| Florida 2 | Georgia 0 |
| LSU 0 | Auburn 3 |
| Tennessee 2 | Kentucky 1 |
| South Carolina 0 | Alabama 1 |
The win sends Florida to its 16th SEC Tournament semifinal appearance where it will meet No. 8 seed Alabama on Friday, who advanced with a 1-0 win over top-seeded South Carolina.
A pair of Gator seniors combined on the final two touches to score Florida’s first goal in the 26th minute. Lindsay Thompson, standing a few paces above the 18-yard box, flicked the ball sent in from Gator goalkeeper Taylor Burke into the box. Annis ran onto the ball, fighting through a pair of Bulldog defenders to get a touch on the ball, and get the score from 10 yards.
“We’ve been working on the long balls from Taylor Burke and she played a perfect ball, which I was able to flick,” Thompson said. “Tahnai was running and got there before their defenders and goalkeeper to place it in. I was really happy we were able to get that lead.”
For Burke, she becomes only the second Gator goalkeeper in the program’s 17-year history to be credited with an assist. The last goalkeeper to assist on a goal was Brittni Goodwin, who earned the assist on Angela Napolitano’s goal in Florida’s 7-0 win versus Jacksonville on Sept. 10, 2006.
The first corner kick awarded to the Gators resulted in the lead being pushed to 2-0 just seconds before halftime. Thompson took the corner and sent it to the middle of the box. Holly King headed the ball forward and several players from both sides compacted together to try to make a play on the loose ball. But it was Annis who got a foot on it to score her second goal of the half.
“Usually I haven’t taken the corners but time was running out and I was already over there so I thought I should take it,” Thompson said. “Holly got up really high and headed it. It bounced off their defender and their keeper and then Tahnai made a really great effort to put it in the back of the net.”
It was Annis who McKenzie Barney handed her captain’s armband after Barney’s season ended on Oct. 28 when she suffered multiple facial fractures in the regular-season finale. Annis was surprised that Barney selected her to take the armband and she wanted to perform well for her sidelined teammate.
“I had no idea that Mac (McKenzie Barney) was going to do that. Mac means so much to this team and how she is as a leader. I look up to her in that way and she inspires me day in and day out,” Annis said. “It really meant a lot to perform for her and to represent her as a leader on and off the field. I was glad we came out and played so hard and came out with the win.”
The two-goal effort was the seventh double-goal match of Annis’ career and her second of the season. She now shares second among the Gators with freshman Annie Speese with seven goals each.
Florida Head Coach Becky Burleigh thought it wasn’t one of the Gators’ prettiest performances, but she’s happy Florida found a way to win, advancing the team to Friday’s semifinal round.
“For us, we’re going to take wins any way we can get them. That was not one of our prettier performances in terms of the way we played, but I love the way we battled and I love the fact that we got a shutout and that we’re moving on to the next round.”
It was a day of upsets at the SEC Tournament, as the top two seeded teams were sent home. In addition to South Carolina dropping their first round match, No. 2 seed LSU fell 3-0 to Auburn in the day’s opening match. No. 3 seed Tennessee defeated Kentucky 2-1 and will face Auburn in Friday’s first semifinal.
