Carolyn Brown delivers to Emily Dowd

Emily Dowd and Caroline Brown are no strangers. And that's a good thing for the Tennessee women's soccer team.

Dowd scored twice on assists from Brown in a span of 1 minute, 17 seconds to break a scoreless tie to lift the Lady Vols to a 2-0 victory over Middle Tennessee State at Regal Soccer Stadium on Friday night.

"I always know where she's supposed to be," Dowd, a senior forward said about Brown, a sophomore forward. "As long as she's there, that's where I'm going to play it."

And she did.

Brown sent a cross to the right post that rolled past goalkeeper Rebecca Cushing and all an open Dowd had to do was direct the slow-moving ball into the goal from 2 yards out with 8:36 left to play.

"It's like (coach Angela Kelly) always says, follow up, do all the little things," said Dowd. "That's what she talks about."

It started a mini-celebration for the No. 23 Lady Vols (4-1) after struggling with the pesky Blue Raiders (1-3) of the Sun Belt Conference.

Not long after, Dowd and Brown did it again at the 82:41 mark. This time, Brown set up Dowd perfectly on the right side and her kick to the left of the goal easily beat Cushing.

"Textbook," Dowd said of the play. "Just like (Kelly) asks for."

MTSU kept UT goalkeeper Julie Eckel, who entered the game with a 0.98 goals allowed average, busy in the first half with a 12-9 shot advantage and forced the freshman to make six saves.

The Lady Vols had some chances, but Cushing needed to make one save, although she was helped with some shots that ricochetted off of her and MTSU defenders.

That changed in the second half as MTSU went for most of the period without a shot on goal, finishing with three. At one point UT had a 9-1 shot advantage.

Ali Hall nearly prevented the dramatics for the Lady Vols when the junior defenseman sent a shot that hit the top of the crossbar with under 34 minutes left.

Brown had a chance to score her fifth goal of the season when Becky Pedro of MTSU was called for a foul in the box when she took down Brown with under 20 minutes left.

However, Brown's penalty kick was read perfectly to the right by a diving Cushing and the ball was deflected away from the goal.

That left it up for Brown to find Dowd.

"We have a very strong connection," Brown said about Dowd, adding that it has grown from a year ago.

And it didn't matter that Dowd tapped in what would have been a goal later for Brown.

"I don't care who hits it as long as it goes in," said Brown.

Notebook: Defenseman Hannah Hut was on crutches after suffering a high right ankle sprain in last Sunday's win over Texas A&M. UT expects the senior to return at some point this season.