FARMVILLE, Va. – Focus is the ability to dial in on a task and drown out surrounding noise. There was plenty of noise surrounding Longwood women's soccer's matchup against Winthrop Saturday, but the Lancers ignored it all.
 
In a matchup rife with postseason implications, red-hot Longwood (7-6-3, 5-2-2 Big South) honed its sights on the 90-minute task at hand and used a pair of second-half goals from freshman Danielle Toone and sophomore Madison Lockamy to edge the Eagles 2-1 and retain their top-three position in the Big South standings.
 
Attached to Saturday's late-season Big South matchup were conference tournament seeding scenarios where the margin between a win and a draw could mean the difference between Longwood finishing in the league's top four and earning first-round hosting rights, or dropping outside that group and hitting the road for a much more difficult journey back to the Big South title game.
 
However, those mind-bending postseason algorithms were far from the concerns for the Lancers, and the result was the team's fifth win in the past six games.
 
"Every game, [head coach Todd Dyer] tells us this one is the most important game," said Lockamy, whose long-range strike in the 62nd minute proved to be the game-winner. "As a team we just go into every game thinking this could be our last one because we never really know. We definitely have that 'Play and give it your all no matter what' mentality."
 
Longwood controlled the game throughout, outshooting Winthrop (8-8-1, 4-6-0 Big South) 25-10 and winning the possession battle for nearly the entire 90 minutes. However, the Lancers had little to show for it until Toone broke through early in the second half by turning a crisply fed pass from Emilie Kupsov into a breakaway goal and a 1-0 Lancer lead.
 
Lockamy followed 13 minutes later with her laser from outside the box, taking a cross from Kennedy Culbreath and unloading it in the direction of Eagles keeper Kelly Horan, who dove to her right to meet it but saw it careen backwards off her outstretched hands and ricochet off the post into the net.
 
"We definitely wanted to come out and play hard for the seniors because this was their day," said Lockamy. "That definitely provided a lot of energy that we miss sometimes. We always start strong in the first half, but I felt like that we maintained that throughout the whole game today."
 
That spark began in the pregame when the Lancers honored the seven-member senior class of Kelly Almeida, Annie Boros, Amber Hodges, Kathryn Miller, Paige Robertson, Sheyenne Stretz and Sydney Wallace for Senior Day. Playing their final regular-season game on their home field, those seven all logged significant minutes, including the reigning Big South Defensive Player of the Year Wallace who anchored a Longwood defense that held Winthrop to just four shots on goal.
 
"We made it interesting again, but ultimately we got the results we needed to honor a very special senior class," said Dyer of that group, which improved to 47-29-10 overall and 21-12-7 in the Big South.
 
"We had a lot of possession in the first half but no goals to show for it. However, the response in the second half was key to finding the breakthrough, and that's exactly what we did. So a big 'THANK YOU' seniors, and let's be ready for High Point Tuesday."
 
With just one matchup remaining in the regular season – against rival High Point Tuesday in a rematch of last year's Big South Championship game, no less – the Lancers are in dog fight with six other teams to secure first-round hosting duties in the upcoming Big South postseason. Currently in a tie for second place with Gardner-Webb (5-1-2), the Lancers can secure one of those top-four spots with a win Tuesday against the Panthers but would need help from the rest of the league with anything else.
 
The Big South Championship first round opens next weekend, Oct. 26-28, with matchups at the top four teams in the final conference standings. The semifinals and finals will then take place at Matthews Sportsplex in Matthews, N.C. on Nov. 2-4.
 

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