Tournament Bracket | NEWMAC Field Hockey History
SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (Oct. 30, 2010) – Using a balanced attack, the fifth seeded Springfield College field hockey team picked up a 4-2 victory over fourth seeded Mount Holyoke College in the Quarterfinal Round of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament this evening. Four different players scored goals for the Pride, who rebounded from a 4-1 setback to the Lyons in the regular season finale for both squads on Saturday.
With the win, the Pride secured a spot in Saturday's NEWMAC Semifinals. They will face off against top seeded Babson College at 12:00 p.m. The Beavers received a bye in the new six team tournament format and will host both Semifinals, as well as the Championship. On the other side of the bracket, third seeded Wheaton College pummeled sixth seeded Clark University 7-0. Wheaton will meet second seeded MIT in the other Semifinal Round contest at 3:00 p.m.
Mount Holyoke closed out its 2010 campaign with an overall record of 11-6 and a league mark of 5-3. The Lyons entered tonight's contest riding a six match winning streak. Their 11 wins this year were their most since the 2005 season, when they prevailed 14 times.
The hosts jumped out to a 1-0 advantage at the 15:35 mark, when junior forward Shara Robertson collected a long crossing pass from classmate Taylor Hedges and scored from point blank range. It was her team leading 19th tally of the season.
Springfield took advantage of a penalty corner opportunity to record the equalizer just under two minutes later. After receiving the initial injection from sophomore midfielder Kayla Sokol, senior forward Megan Dobson directed a pass to classmate Meg Bradley, who rifled a shot into the cage from the top of the circle.
The Pride grabbed the lead on a goal by junior forward Alexa Carlson 10 minutes later. Sokol got the play started with a long pass into the circle from the midfield. The ball was redirected by first year forward Kelly Gallo to Carlson, who proceeded to beat junior goalkeeper Katie Gibson for what proved to be the winner.
Springfield poured in two more goals over a span of 1:30 in the early stages of the second stanza to put things away.
Junior defender Lynne Donoghue scored the first off of a rebound at the 40:25 mark.
Gallo then capped off her team's 4-0 run with her 11th goal of the year in the 42nd minute. After gaining control of the ball on the right side, she dribbled past several Mount Holyoke defenders to the middle of the circle and snapped a backhand past Gibson to the far side.
Junior forward Jess Fajardo knocked in a rebound with six minutes remaining in regulation to slice the deficit to 4-2, but it was not enough.
Mount Holyoke fell despite finishing with advantages in both shots (14-13) and penalty corners (14-6). Junior goalkeeper Alison McCarthy made seven saves for the Pride, while Gibson turned away five shots for the Lyons.
