Next Game: at Mississippi State 10/7/2018 | 1 p.m CT SECN+

TUSCALOOSA, ALA. – The Alabama women's soccer team picked up its first Southeastern Conference win of the year by defeating Kentucky, 4-3, Thursday evening at the Alabama Soccer Complex. Sophomore Casey Wertz scored the game-winning goal in the 54th minute to push the Crimson Tide (7-6-1, 1-4-0 SEC) past the Wildcats (4-10-0, 0-5-0 SEC).

"I thought we did a great job of finding our target forwards today," head coach Wes Hart said. "Some of our shots fell today and some of those same shots we took last week and the week before didn't fall for us, but today they fell. I'm certainly happy anytime we can score four goals in a league game and we doubled our production for the past four games. We will take that as a positive and hopefully that will build confidence and we can carry that into Mississippi State."

Alabama's offensive attack lit up the scoreboard and allowed the team an early lead going into halftime. Senior Christina Maartensson got the night rolling in the eighth minute of the game, by taking an outside shot that deflected off the post for her second goal of the season. Less than 15 minutes later, Alabama was awarded a corner kick taken by senior Emma Welch and headed into the back of the net by Wertz. Alabama's third goal of the game came courtesy of freshman Kaitlyn Madden's rebound to sophomore Taylor Morgan for an assisted goal.

The last two minutes of the first half proved to be eventful for Kentucky, as they took advantage of corner kicks to score in the 43rd and 44th minute.

The second half was an aggressive battle for possession of the ball, as both teams tallied 15 fouls for the night. Senior Abbie Boswell connected the ball to Wertz, who beat a defender to slide a shot to the far post past the Kentucky keeper for her eighth goal of the season and the game winning-goal in the 54th minute of play. Kentucky scored seconds after, but it was not enough to send the game into overtime.

The Crimson Tide registered six more shots than the Wildcats (18-12), 3 more shots on goal (10-7), and one more corner kick (4-3) in the 90-minute affair. Sophomore Alex Plavin collected four saves in the match.

Alabama will continue its conference slate on the road on Sunday, Oct. 7 at Mississippi State at 1 p.m. CT in Starkville, Mississippi. The contest can be seen on SEC Network+.

Get all the latest information on the team by following @AlabamaSoccer on Twitter and Facebook and AlabamaSoccer on Instagram. General athletic news can also be found at UA_Athletics on Twitter and Instagram and AlabamaAthletics on Facebook.