HIGH POINT, N.C. – A season that featured a six-game win streak, a third-place Big South finish and a league-leading six Big South  shutouts came to an end for Longwood in the Big South semifinals Thursday night at the hands of No. 2 seed High Point, 3-0, at Vert Stadium.
 
In a showdown between two of the league's top three finishers in the regular season, it was the second-place Panthers (9-7-2) who moved on to the Big South Championship game thanks to a stifling defensive effort from its back line, a four-save shutout from goalkeeper Morgan Hairston, and an early go-ahead goal from All-Big South forward Magdalena Schwarz.
 
High Point, the preseason favorite in the Big South Preseason Coaches Poll, will now prepare for Sunday's championship battle against Big South regular-season champion Campbell, which defeated Radford 5-1 in the league's other semifinal match Thursday.
 
Meanwhile, Longwood – which defeated No. 6 seed Gardner-Webb 2-0 in Monday's first round to reach the semifinals – finishes the season 8-8-4 overall and 6-2-2 in Big South play. That marks the 13th time in 15 Division I seasons the Lancers have finished .500 or better overall and the ninth time in 10 Big Souths seasons they have done so in conference play – all under 28th-head coach and program founder Todd Dyer.
 
"It's always disappointing when the season comes to an end like this," said Dyer, who has taken the Lancers to five Big South semifinals and one championship game – in 2017 – in the program's 10 years in the conference.
 
"So many players and staff pour themselves into the season with the ultimate goal of bringing home a championship. We fell short of that but had a successful season finishing top three in the league, hosting a quarterfinal and advancing in the tournament. It's still hard though, because we have to say goodbye to the seniors who have grown so much with the program. Now we will all just process and appreciate the journey we've been on together since August."
 
Entering the game with the Big south's second-leading scoring offense and armed with three of the league's top 10 goal-scorers, High Point took a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute and never looked back. Longwood goalkeeper Jordan Horacek stopped five of the first six shots she faced to keep the deficit at 1-0 well into the second half, but High Point All-Big South midfielder Chloe Le Franc broke through for another goal in the 74th minute, and Salome Prat punctuated the win with another strike less than four minutes later.
 
The win was the fifth straight for the Panthers and sends them to the Big South title game for the fourth time in the past eight seasons.
 
For Longwood, Thursday's semifinal marked the end of a five-year tenure for Lancer graduate students, midfielders and team captains Madison Hommey and Madison Lockamy, who came in together as freshmen during Longwood's run to the 2017 Big South Championship game and concluded standout careers that saw the pair combine to play nearly 10,000 minutes as Lancers. Lockamy earned her second All-Big South recognition this season – and first career first-team recognition – while Hommey made her 46th consecutive start after recovering from a knee injury she suffered before her sophomore season.
 
Both Hommey and Lockamy played every minute of their final game, as did Horacek, junior forwards Catharine Forst and Kiersten Yuhas, sophomore defenders Amanda Arnone and Alayna Palamar, and Big South All-Freshman Team defender Brooke Bonner. All-Big South forward Danielle Toone played 81 of those 90 minutes, while her fellow frontline mates Alex Dinger and Julia Gill also topped the 70-minute plateau.

#HorsePower