NEWARK, Del. – In a hard-fought matchup that was close from start to finish, the No. 6 seed Middle Tennessee Women's Soccer fell in the Conference USA Championship quarterfinal to the No. 3 Delaware, 3-0, on Sunday afternoon at Stuart and Suzanne Grant Stadium.

On a sunny and cool afternoon in Newark, the Blue Raiders (9-7-4, 2-4-2 CUSA) could not overcome the tournament hosts in the Blue Hens (11-3-5, 5-1-2 CUSA), who had a raucous home crowd behind them.

''I'm pretty disappointed in the loss, but certainly happy with the effort the players gave,'' MTSU Head Coach Aston Rhoden said. ''I think [the effort] has been absolutely brilliant. We didn't make excuses and went about our business. We were able to have some younger and older players step up and play different positions just to compensate for the way things were going for us.''

UD opened the scoring in the 23rd minute courtesy of Second Team All-Conference USA forward Adiat Olaogun-Dickson. Teammate Ava Sallee dribbled towards the byline and received a fortunate bounce off of her defender, before finding Olaogun-Dickson who fired into the left corner of the net.

With 10 minutes to go in the half, Middle Tennessee produced its best chance of the match so far through Ania Denham, who struck the ball just over the net from outside the box.

The Blue and White kept their momentum going into the second half, as captain Megan Carroll forced a second save out of Hall in search of an equalizer.

Delaware doubled its lead in the 62nd minute courtesy of top scorer and All-CUSA First Team forward Maggie Groh, who took a touch past MTSU goalkeeper Ella Sellers to slot home. Sallee provided the pass to Groh, earning her second assist of the afternoon.

The Blue Hens scored the final goal of the game from Olivia Bley's corner kick in the 80th minute. Bley sent in a cross that found Willa Pratt's head through a crowd of MTSU black, scoring her second goal of the season and Delaware's third.

In goal, Sellers made three saves to bring her season total to a career-high 23.

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