Williams Edges Amherst, Wins Fourth Consecutive Women's Soccer Title

Courtesy Amherst Sports Information

Box Score

AMHERST, Mass. – Senior tri-captain Sara Wild’s goal in the 74th minute was all third-seeded Williams College needed to claim its fourth consecutive NESCAC Women’s Soccer Championship, as the Ephs earned a 1-0 win over second-seeded Amherst College Sunday afternoon at Hitchcock Field. Williams advances to the NCAA Tournament with the conference’s automatic bid, while the Lord Jeffs will hope for an at-large selection.

Sunday marked the fifth time these teams had met in the conference tournament and the third time they had squared off in the finals. Amherst won the 2001 title with a 2-1 win over Williams in double overtime, while the Ephs claimed the 2008 crown with a 3-2 victory against the Jeffs in overtime. The all-time series, which dates back to 1978, is now tied at 15-15-7.

It seemed as though Amherst and Williams would need overtime to decide a conference champion once again, but the Ephs finally broke through when they put together an impressive offensive sequence to break the tie. Annelise Snyder '11 passed the ball ahead to first-year Hayley Cook, who immediately found Wild in the box on the right side. Wild took the pass, beat a defender and placed a beautiful shot to the far post, just getting her attempt past the outstretched arms of Amherst goalie Allie Horwitz '12 with 16:37 showing on the clock. Wild also netted the game winner in Saturday's semifinal win over Middlebury.

Williams held a 4-3 advantage in shots after the first 45 minutes, but Amherst had the two best scoring opportunities of the half. The first came when Sarah Duffy '14 played a cross from the right wing to Hannah Cooper '13, who made a great run only to have her one-time attempt sail high of the goal. The second came with only 3:30 remaining in the period when Allison Dorey '12 delivered a corner to Jill Kochanek '12, whose header was saved by a diving effort from Eph goalie Laura Wann '13.

Both teams looked much sharper in what was a thrilling second half. Amherst made the first significant push of the period, but Williams nearly scored twice within a span of three minutes. Wild sent a cross from the left wing and the ball got behind Horwitz, but Emily Little '13 was there to clear it out of harm's way on a heads-up play. Minutes later Eph forward Brett Eisenhart '12 received a cross in the box and put a shot on target. The ball hit Horwitz's hands and bounced off the crossbar, but the Amherst keeper quickly recovered and came up with the save.

Williams caught a break with 28 minutes to play when the Jeffs could not take advantage of an empty net. After Amherst played the ball into the box, Hannah Cooper '13 was put into a footrace with substitute goalie Julia Schreiber '11. Cooper got there first, turned and had an open net to shoot at, but she was at a very tough angle and her attempt missed wide left. Williams quickly countered and it looked as though Snyder had a clear path to the goal after a long ball was played ahead to her, but Amherst defender Sandy Shepherd '13 came out of nowhere to make a great tackle and end the threat.

After Wild gave the Ephs their 1-0 lead, Amherst came back with a pair of corner kicks but could not put anything on net. The Jeffs came just inches shy of tying the game with 6:30 to play when Maureen Griffin '11 attempted a bicycle kick in the box after a Jackie Hirsch '11 free kick from the endline, as Griffin's shot beat the keeper but just barely made its way over the crossbar.

Amherst made one final push when a Jess Wall '12 shot from 25 yards out missed wide, as the Ephs held on to successfully defend their title once again. Horwitz made five saves to move to 7-6-1 for Amherst. Wann and Schreiber each played 45 minutes to share the shutout, with Wann stopping two shots in the first half and Schreiber making one save in the second. With the win, Schreiber improves to 7-3-1.

2010 NESCAC WOMEN'S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Sunday, October 31 at Higher Seeds
No. 8 Bates 0, at No. 1 Tufts 0
Bates advances on Penalty Kicks, 3-2
at No. 2 Amherst 3, No. 7 Bowdoin 2
at No. 3 Williams 4, No. 6 Wesleyan 1
No. 5 Middlebury 2, at No. 4 Trinity 0

Semifinals - Saturday, November 6 at Amherst
at No. 2 Amherst 4, No. 8 Bates 1
No. 3 Williams 2, vs. No. 5 Middlebury 0

Championship - Sunday, November 7
No. 3 Williams 1, at No. 2 Amherst 0

2010 NESCAC WOMEN'S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP

Quarterfinals - Sunday, October 31 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 6 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 7
Semifinal Winners - 12:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Women's Soccer Championship.  Quarterfinal games will be conducted on Sunday, October 31, 2010 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, November 6 and Sunday, November 7, 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 Friday, October 29.

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.