The No. 6 Florida State women’s soccer team concluded its regular season home schedule on Thursday night in front of a packed crowd at the Seminole Soccer Complex. The Marching Chiefs were in attendance to support the Seminoles, who welcomed Wake Forest for a rather chilly match in Tallahassee.

FSU has had some ups and downs the past few weeks but came out victorious over the Demon Deacons 4-1.

“I thought from the outset, our pressure was good,” FSU coach Brian Pensky said. "We created a couple of set-piece goals, good stuff, right? I still think we need to clean up some defending stuff. Individual defending obviously, we gave away another goal on a cross. That’s disappointing, but I thought we were pretty relentless in our effort.”

The match started with a rather scary moment in the second minute when junior Wake Forest midfielder Dempsey Brown collided near the box with FSU junior forward Jordynn Dudley. Dempsey took the brunt of the collision and was down for a considerable amount of time. The injury was not disclosed, but it looked like a head or neck injury as Dempsey was carted off the field and put into an ambulance.

When the game resumed, the Seminoles showed pressure on the Deacons early on and threatened on their side of the field. In the 9th minute, Wake senior midfielder Carly Wilson was given a yellow card when she drew a foul on sophomore midfielder Taylor Suarez.

Suarez finished off what she had planned on that play as she sent a beautiful ball that was partially deflected by the goalkeeper into the corner of the net to give the Seminoles a 1-0 lead.

FSU continued to put pressure on Wake. In the 20th minute, Dudley sprinted near the goal with three defenders around her and was able to draw a foul from Wake forward Brooke Miller. After the play was reviewed, Dudley was awarded a penalty kick, and the talented junior did not disappoint as she put the Seminoles up 2-0 with an empathic goal.

FSU was in control heading into the locker room with a 2-0 lead.

After three quick consecutive corner kicks for Florida State to start the second half, you could sense that the match was on the verge of being blown wide open. The Seminoles would eventually score — it wasn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when they would score.

In the 53rd minute, Dudley did it again when she scored her second goal on an assist from Suarez to put FSU up 3-0.

Wake would score its only goal of the night in the 55th minute, while the Seminoles added a Yuna McCormack goal in the 61st minute to make the score 4-1.

Marching Chiefs play on Senior Night

The match against Wake was a special one for the four seniors that called themselves ’Noles. Giana Riley, Enasia Colon, Marianyela Jiménez and Heather Gilchrist were honored before the game as they would all play their last regular season game in front of the home crowd at “The Plex.” The game also had a special group in attendance for support: The world-renowned Florida State University Marching Chiefs were in attendance. This gave the match a different feel than any other and offered a little more energy for the Seminoles to feed off.

“They love it,” Pensky said. “It helps the atmosphere and listening to them before the game kicked off, I’m sitting here thinking that would be pretty cool to play in the football stadium and 67,000 people. That’ll get your juices flowing, but for our kids and the steady beat throughout the game and the atmosphere was an energy boost 100 percent.”

Up next

With the win, the Seminoles now prepare for Virginia in a quarterfinal match in the ACC tournament on Sunday at 8 p.m.

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