Courtesy Middlebury Athletic Communications

Box Score

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Colby won its first NESCAC women’s lacrosse championship with a 14-12 victory over Trinity at Middlebury College’s Kohn Field. The Mules earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and will find out their fate when the selections are announced on Sunday night.

Trinity was strong early, taking a 4-2 lead in the game’s first 6:18 behind a pair of goals from Caitlin Irvine. Colby answered with a three-goal run to take its first lead of the game at 5-4 on a tally from Kate Sheridan just 19 seconds after their previous goal. Trinity tied the game as Irvine scored her third of the half with a nice feed from C.J. Yanofsky at the 12:33 mark. Colby went into the halftime break with a 6-5 lead as Kathleen Kramer finished off a long possession with a nice feed from Becky Julian for the goal.

The teams exchanged the first four goals of the second half, leaving Colby with an 8-7 lead. The Mules then went on an impressive four goal run over a 6:25 span to take a 12-7 lead with 11:12 left to play. Sheridan netted the first of the four with a high hard shot from 10 yards away, followed by a nice catch and shoot goal from Lauren Strazzula to Julian. Casey Thomas and Carly Rapaport scored the final two that gave the Mules some breathing room.

Trinity answered right back as Sarah Remes found the back of the net just 16 seconds later, followed by a goal from Rachel Romanowsky to make it a 12-9 game. Colby answered before the Bantams ran off three more goals to come within one at 13-12. Irvine scored the first of the three, followed by a free position conversion by Remes. Irvin made it a one-goal game with just 2:26 remaining on the clock.

Trinity would have a great chance to tie the game with 1:13 remaining, but Irvin’s free position shot bounced off the pipe and squirted wide. Sheridan scored an empty-net goal late for Colby to seal the 14-12 win.

Sheridan led Colby with a four-goal afternoon, Julian scored three, while Carrie Lovejoy netted a pair. Julian set a championship record for total points with 17 in her three tournament games, finishing the 2008 playoffs with 11 goals, which also tied a championship record, and six assists. Irvine of Trinity tied a NESCAC Tournament record with six goals in the game, while Romanowsky, Remes and Alisen Urquhart each scored twice. Sarah Warnke made five saves for Colby to earn the win, while Michelle Smith made 15 stops for the Bantams.

2008 NESCAC WOMEN’S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Sunday, April 27 at Higher Seeds
at No. 2 Amherst 8, No. 7 Wesleyan 7
at No. 3 Trinity 12, No. 6 Bowdoin 9
No. 5 Colby 22, at No. 4 Tufts 14

Semifinals - Saturday, May 3 at Middlebury
No. 5 Colby 10, at No. 1 Middlebury 8
No. 3 Trinity 10, vs. No. 2 Amherst 9 - 2OT

Championship - Sunday, May 4 at Middlebury
No. 5 Colby 14, No. 3 Trinity 12

2008 NESCAC WOMEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Sunday, April 27 at Higher Seeds
No. 7 vs. No. 2
No. 6 vs. No. 3
No. 5 vs. No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, May 3
at No. 1 Seed - 12:00 p.m./2:30 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, May 4
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top 7 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Women's Lacrosse Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Sunday, April 27, 2008 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, May 3 and Sunday, May 4, 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.  The number one seed will receive a bye in the first round and will host the semifinals and championship game.  The next three seeds will host first round games with the number two seed drawing the number seven seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Saturday, April 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).
• 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.