If you’re going to flip the script on an opponent, there’s no better time to do it than when a championship is on the line. And that’s exactly what the South Georgia State College Hawks did on their home field Saturday afternoon against the Gordon State College Highlanders. The two teams had met twice this season and had split with each other with the visiting team winning both times.
Saturday, the Highlanders came to Douglas for the championship game of the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association soccer championship. This time, the home team won. The Hawks defeated the Highlanders 5-1 and brought a GCAA soccer title home to South Georgia State College.
“It started last year. Obviously, we had the major hit from the hurricane. It came in and wrecked our season. We were always working to get better and bounce back – just like the community had to. I had the same group of girls. Thankfully they came back. They’re super talented and I had a great group of freshmen who came in and really highlighted the girls we already had. I attribute this season to our style of play and staying true to who we are. We like to play a possession game. We like to find gaps and run through. Hopefully, those will end in goals. That’s what we tried to do all season,” said head coach Lisa Gonzalez, the GCAA’s Coach of the Year, after the game.
The Hawks jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and built a comfortable 4-1 advantage at halftime. In the second half, Nandi Carpenter scored her third goal of the game to put the Hawks up 5-1. If the game wasn’t out of reach by then, it certainly was once that shot found the net. In addition to Carpenter’s three goals, Andrea Cova scored two as well, one of which came on a penalty kick.
For GCAA Player of the Year Bailey Maroney, the turning point of the 2025 season came a few weeks ago when the Hawks traveled to Daytona Beach to face the nation’s number one JUCO soccer team, the Daytona State College Falcons. It was Daytona State’s homecoming and the Hawks were supposed to be nothing more than cannon fodder for the Falcons.
SGSC, however, had different plan. Yes, the Hawks lost. But DSC managed just two goals, one late in the first half and the other with just a few minutes remaining in the game. The SGSC defense was more than up to the challenge and frustrated the Falcons the entire night.
Even in defeat, it was a confidence builder and showed that Hawks could play with the best teams in the country. “When we only lost that game 2-0, I really realized that these girls have drive and it’s a lot different than what I’m used to. It’s been good,” said Maroney on Saturday afternoon.
The Daytona State game seemed to energize the Hawks and catapult them through the last three weeks of the season. They won four in a row, including a 3-1 victory over Gordon on October 15. This week, in the GCAA tournament, SGSC defeated Central Georgia Tech 3-0 then won the championship with another win over Gordon.
“We ended up victorious and we have District next, which is Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. We’ll go to South Carolina next weekend and battle it out up there,” said Coach Gonzalez.