That is the question that the Amherst field hockey team faces after falling to Williams College in the NESCAC championship game, held last Sunday at Middlebury College.

By most standards, the women's team had an extraordinary season. They were ranked as high as sixth in the STX/NFHCA national poll, reached the conference final and beat a number of quality opponents. But it is what they weren't able to do-engineer a return trip to the NCAA tournament or beat Williams-that this team will remember most.

Against the Ephs the Jeffs took the field confident, and it showed in the early going.

"I think Williams was initially scared to be playing us again," said Tri-captain Mairin Brady '02. "We started off the game dominating. We definitely had them on their heels."

But the Jeffs were unable to make anything of this domination, and when the Ephs were the first team to find the back of the net, the momentum changed radically. Victoria Scott scored Williams' first goal with 28:44 remaining in the first half, and after that the Ephs controlled the flow of play, much like they had when they beat the Jeffs 3-0 in their only matchup of the regular season.

With just over two minutes left in the first half, the Ephs added to their lead. Tara Boyd added the insurance goal off of an assist from Scott. The Ephs knocked home the final tally with just over eight minutes gone in the second half, when Boyd added her second goal of the game, bringing the score to 3-0.

In order to get to that second showdown with Williams, the Jeffs first had to hold off Middlebury, a team that had beaten them earlier in the season. The Panthers ended up winning 1-0 in the first matchup, but the Jeffs dominated play for most of the game.

This time the play of the game was much the same, but the Jeffs were able to put some points on the board en route to a 3-0 win. The Jeffs took the lead midway through the first period when Tri-captain Marcy Busch '02 tipped in a pass from Jenna Obelsky '03.

Once they got in the scoring column, there was no holding back the Jeffs. Just under five minutes later they added to their lead. Abby Ouimet '03 intercepted a pass and scored an unassisted goal, and the Jeffs added to their lead with a goal from Christine Ryan '04 off an assist from Brady.

"We came out really strong against Middlebury from the beginning," said Busch. "The passing and teamwork was excellent and led to a dominating performance."

With their postseason fate out of their hands, the Jeffs could only hope for one of the two at-large NCAA bids that remained. Unfortunately, it never came.

Last year the NESCAC received both of the at-large bids to NCAAs-with one going to the Jeffs-but all three teams bowed out in the first round. This year, possibly as a result of last year's poor NCAA performance, neither bid was given to a NESCAC team.

"I don't think any of us thought the NESCAC championship would be our last game," said Brady. "The NESCAC is such a strong conference, and the national committee usually awards an at-large bid to the conference."