University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior Melanie Arredondo (Tampico, Mexico) recorded her second goal of the season in the Mocs 8-1 loss to second-place Mercer Friday night at Finley Stadium.
In the 56th minute, Arredondo took a free kick from 25 yards out on the right side and found the net for the Mocs score to make it 4-1.
Chattanooga held the Bears to just three first half goals with Washida Blackman hitting the first in the fourth minute.
Maddie Clark scored on a free kick in the 10
th minute to put Mercer up 2-0 and it would be 15 minutes before Brianna Stampler made it 3-0 in the 27
th minute.
“I think it’s the best we’ve played in the conference thus far,” UTC head coach JD Kyzer said. “This is the time to play hard and play together and we did that in this game. The score is not indicative of how we played. We let in a lot of soft goals.
“Not to take anything away from Mercer. They played hard and got the goals.”
Early in the second half, there was a scramble in the box and Chattanooga keeper Hannah Dunn (Cookeville, Tenn.) was able to deflect a shot from Lis Hopkins but couldn’t pull the ball in as it bounced to Sydney Brogden who made it 4-0 at the 53:17 mark of the game.
Two minutes later, Arredondo took the kick that made it a 4-1 match, but Mercer would get four more goals for the final score. Lauren Grassie connected on a pair while Kim Murphy scored her first two goals of the season in the final 15 minutes of play.
Chattanooga had 10 shots with three on goal led by Hallie Callis (Jackson, Mo.) with three. Dunn made eight saves, putting her all alone in 10th place for saves in a single season. She is eighth all-time at UTC with 111 saves.
Chattanooga will close out the regular season Sunday afternoon at home against The Citadel. Prior to the match, the Mocs will honor its seniors Crystal Mackezyk (Columbia, Tenn.), Melanie Arredondo (Tampico, Mexico) and Taylor Pannell (Sale Creek, Tenn.).