Written by Chris Pendleton

BUENA VISTA, Va.—Fueled by three second-half goals, the Southern Virginia University women's soccer team snapped a three-game slide on Friday with a dominant 4-1 win over NCAA Division II Chowan University at home on The Fields.

"We've had some really tough losses of late and it felt really good to play well today," said sixth-year Head Coach Matt Grawrock. "We put together a stretch there at the start of the second half that was some of the best soccer we've played all season."

Southern Virginia (4-7) and Chowan (1-10) were tied 1-1 at halftime before the Knights exploded for 3 goals during the opening ten minutes of second-half play.

Jade Sorensen (Spring, Texas) led Southern Virginia's scoring outburst with back-to-back goals at the 47:50 and 52:02 marks for her fourth and fifth goals of the season respectively. Sorensen's first goal was set up by a beautiful feed up the middle from Emily Lakin (Stansbury Park, Utah) and her second came on a similar pass from Amber Key-Winsor (Flower Mound, Texas).

Just over three-and-a-half minutes later, Lora Palmer (Alpine, Utah), who leads the Knights with 9 goals this season, netted Southern Virginia's fourth and final goal off an assist from Gabriella Santos (Sarasota, Fla.)—Santos' second assist of the match.

Santos also set up Southern Virginia's opening goal just 1:29 into the first half when she found Key-Winsor alone in the midfield. Key-Winsor took the pass from Santos and rocketed a shot from 30 yards out, which fell just over the reach of Chowan's keeper into the back of the net for the senior's third goal of the season. 

Southern Virginia held its lead for most of the first half until Chowan scored on a free kick from 25 yards out evening the score (1-1) twelve minutes before intermission.

"Although we let Chowan back in the game late in the first half, I was proud of the way we bounced back and put things away early in the second half," said Grawrock. 

Southern Virginia outshot Chowan 23-14 for the match, including a 14-3 advantage for shots on goal. Makenzie Lundquist (Alpine, Utah) spent all 90 minutes in goal for Southern Virginia recording 2 saves while climbing to 3-4 on the season with Friday's win.

Women's soccer is off until next Wednesday, Oct. 10 when the Knights head to Patrick Henry College for a match at 4:30 p.m.