Courtesy Amherst Sports Information

Box Score

AMHERST, Mass. – Spencer Noon '13 scored in the 20th minute and Federico Sucre '13 added an insurance goal early the second half to lead the Amherst College men's soccer team to a 2-0 win over Trinity College Sunday afternoon in the finals of the 2011 NESCAC Championship.

Amherst improves to 14-1-2 and earns the NESCAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Trinity drops to 10-5-2 and will hope for an at-large selection.

The top-seeded Lord Jeffs claimed their second conference title in four years, while the third-seeded Bantams were making their first-ever appearance in the NESCAC finals after missing out on the tournament altogether in 2010.

Amherst has won 14 consecutive games in the series, with Sunday's result snapping a stretch of nine meetings that were decided by one goal.

Trinity carried a five-game winning streak into the championship match and looked strong in the early going, as Dan Mayernick '12 forced Amherst goalkeeper Lennard Kovacs '12 to come up with a diving save after a low shot to the far post from 20 yards out. Two minutes later Anthony El-Hachem '13 made a great run in the box, but his one-timer was blocked in front of the net by Amherst defender Ben Norton '14.

Amherst's first scoring chance came in the 12th minute when Noon beat two Bantam defenders and was left in a 1-on-1 situation with goalkeeper Grant Schonberg '12. Noon tried to sneak a shot between the keeper's legs, but Schonberg knocked the ball away for his first of seven saves.

The Lord Jeffs got on the board when they took advantage of a free kick from 30 yards out. Senior defender Sam Kaplan delivered a perfect ball to Sucre, who rose over the Trinity defense and headed a pass to Noon in the middle of the box. With his back to the goal and no defender within five feet, Noon spun and hit a solid bicycle kick with his left foot. The ball ricocheted off the bottom of the crossbar and took a home-field bounce to give the Jeffs a 1-0 lead with 25:52 on the clock.

Statistics were even at the half, with Amherst holding a slim 11-8 advantage in shots and the teams tied in corner kicks (3-3) and saves (4-4).

The hosts needed only two minutes and 23 seconds to add an insurance goal in the second half, again taking advantage of a set piece. Chris Lerner '13 sent in a free kick from the right side and Sucre once again got his head on the ball, only this team he beat Schonberg himself with a flick to the far post.

Sucre's goal would be the highlight of an otherwise uneventful second half that featured only four shots on goal, all from Amherst. Trinity's last push came with one minute remaining in regulation and resulted in a Zachary Packer '14 shot that rolled just wide of the left post.

Schonberg dropped to 10-5-2 despite coming up with seven saves, while Kovacs improved to 13-1-2 and recorded his seventh shutout of the season after making four stops against the Bantams.

The NCAA will announce its tournament field on Monday, with the Jeffs making their sixth consecutive appearance and the Bantams hoping to be selected for the first time since 1998.

2011 NESCAC MEN'S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, October 29 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Amherst 4, No. 8 Colby 0
No. 7 Middlebury 3, at No. 2 Wesleyan 2
at No. 3 Trinity 2, No. 6 Connecticut College 1
at No. 4 Williams 2, No. 5 Tufts 1

Semifinals - Saturday, November 5 at Amherst
No. 3 Trinity 1, vs. No. 4 Williams 0
at No. 1 Amherst 2, No. 7 Middlebury 1 - 2OT

Championship - Sunday, November 6 at Amherst
at No. 1 Amherst 2, No. 3 Trinity 0

2011 NESCAC MEN'S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP

Quarterfinals - Saturday, October 29 at Higher Seeds
12:30 p.m.
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, November 5 at Highest Remaining Seed
11:00 a.m./1:30 p.m.
  Highest Remaining Seed vs. Lowest Remaining Seed
Remaining First Round Winners

Championship - Sunday, November 6
Semifinal Winners - 12:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Men's Soccer Championship. Quarterfinal games will be conducted on Saturday, October 29, 2011 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, November 5 and Sunday, November 6, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play. Standings will be based on points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie).

The 8th seed will play at the 1st seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed. Teams will be re-bracketed after first round games and the lowest remaining seed will face the highest remaining seed.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Wednesday, October 26.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Best conference winning percentage.
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.