Bridgeport, Conn. - The University of Bridgeport women's soccer team used a dominating second half performance to pick up the team's second consecutive East Coast Conference Championship Tournament title, as the top-seeded Purple Knights defeated the visiting and second seeded LIU Post Pioneers, 2-0, at Knights Field on Friday afternoon. The victory, Bridgeport's thirteenth win a row, sends the Purple Knights into next week's 2016 NCAA Division Women's Soccer Championship Tournament with a 16-3-0. LIU Post is 14-3-2, and the Pioneers will await word on an NCAA Championship at-large bid on Monday night.
After a scoreless first 45 minutes, Bridgeport would be playing with the wind in the second half, and the Purple Knights broke the scoreless deadlock quickly when senior Stephanie Vahos (Shelton, Conn.) scored her second goal of 2016 just 3:53 into the frame when she found the back of the net off play that began from a corner kick by senior Nicola Worthington (Chorley, England).
UB outshot LIU post, 13-1 in the second half.
Pioneers' sophomore goalkeeper Hillevi Eklow (Varobacka, Sweden) kept her team in the match all afternoon long, as she made a total of nine saves, seven of which came in the second half.
The Purple Knights would add an insurance goal with just over five when Worthington knocked home a penalty kick for her fifth goal of the season, after graduate student Amanda Moura (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) was fouled in the box.
Bridgeport senior Flo Gamby (Goffs Oak, England) earned the Most Outstanding Player Award for this season's ECC Women's Soccer Championship.
Friday's appearance was UB's fifth consecutive in the ECC Championship Final, and this season's trip to the NCAA Championship Tournament will be the program's ninth appearance, as Bridgeport has made an NCAA trip every season since 2007 with the exception of 2012.
The Purple Knights join LIU Post and Dowling as the only programs to win back-to-back ECC Women's Soccer crowns. The Pioneers, then known as C.W. Post, took the East Coast Conference titles in 2007 and 2008, while former ECC member school, Dowling, pulled off the feat in 2011 and 2012.
Provided by the Bridgeport Sports Information Department.
