By By Robby Atkinson/staff writer
September 7, 2003
The Meridian Community College men's and women's soccer teams earned an impressive sweep over East Mississippi in local junior college soccer action on Saturday. The MCC women's team earned a 4-0 shutout, while the men also tallied a shutout by the final count of 8-0.
Meridian will return to action on Wednesday against Mississippi Delta, while East Mississippi will travel to Copiah-Lincoln for a pair of games that same day. The MCC-Delta action will begin with the women at 5 p.m. and the men's game to follow at 7 p.m.
Meridian women 4
East Miss. 0
The MCC Lady Eagles (1-3) earned their first win of the year, paced by an amazing hat trick from Tiffany Holman to defeat East Mississippi.
The Lady Eagles put the pressure on with a very quick goal in the opening 10 minutes of the match. Holman put her first goal in the net with 33:42 remaining in the opening half to put Meridian in front 1-0.
MCC almost made another quick goal, but it was not to be. After a foul in the keeper's box, Cheri Wilson was granted a penalty kick, but the kick hit the top of the goal.
Meridian, however would begin the second half on the right note with a big goal. Candis Beard notched the goal for the Lady Eagles to make the score 2-0 with 28:26 left in the match.
Holman collected her final two goals in the closing minutes of the game. The first goal came off a deflected shot from Krisi Nash that put Holman in perfect position for her second goal. The final goal from the Brandon native was with 57 seconds on a great cross over that fooled the East Mississippi keeper.
Meridian men 8
East Miss. 0
The MCC men's squad dominated the opening kick off and never looked back in taking the shutout win over the Lions. The Eagles got its first goal with 31:28 left in the first half off a goal from Brent Hopper to put Meridian in the lead 1-0.
Meridian wouldn't stop there as Joseph Murphy notched his first goal of the match with 27:34 to extend the MCC lead to 2-0.
The scoring continued moments later with another goal from Hopper with 16:27 left in the first to grow the lead to 3-0.
MCC added three more big goals in the first half with one coming from Travis Brown on an open net to make the score 6-0 at the end of the first half.
Meridian tacked on a pair of goals to end the offense on the day to take the big win. Former Clarkdale standout Justin Culpepper had two goals in the game and Will Sowell also collected a goal.