From there, the stories diverged. While the Jeffs parlayed a close 4-3 advantage against Colby into a 12-3 score, thanks to eight unanswered goals in the second quarter, the Williams game ended far differently for the Jeffs. With the loss, the Jeffs' season was over.
On Saturday, Amherst played what appeared to be the perfect tune-up game entering the NESCAC Tournament. For the first quarter-and-a-half, the Jeffs and the Mules were neck-and-neck. As the second quarter progressed, Amherst clung to a 4-3 lead, having played a generally smart and disciplined game.
Then the Jeffs exploded. Throwing defensive concerns out the window, Amherst went on the offensive, and it paid off. In less than 15 minutes, the Jeffs' lead had increased eight-fold, thanks to an 8-0 spurt led-not suprisingly-by attackmen Derek Cherney '07 and Thomas Foote '09, who each netted two goals in the span. Taking a 12-3 lead into the half, the Jeffs didn't look back, cruising to a 15-10 victory.
Cherney led the Jeffs in scoring with three goals and an assist, and four other Jeffs, including Foote, netted two tallies. Both sophomore Matt Pietroforte and first-year Andrew Harrison spent 30 minutes in goal, with Pietroforte saving five of eight attempts and Harrison blocking eight of 15. Amherst clinched the fourth seed in the conference tournament with the win, setting up a rematch with archrival Williams, whom the Jeffs had beaten 10-9 in overtime in mid-April.
According the box score, the Jeffs played better on Sunday. Amherst dominated Williams in both shots and ground balls-two categories the Jeffs had trailed Colby in on Saturday. After giving up 48 shots to Colby, including 24 in the final quarter, the Jeffs held the Ephs to 28, while attempting 40 of their own. Similarly, though they had lost the ground ball battle to Colby by six, they claimed 18 more ground balls than Williams on Sunday.
Unfortunately for the Jeffs, however, the game was played on the field and not on the stat sheet. In the end, the only statistic that summed up Sunday's contest was saves. Despite taking 12 more shots than the Ephs, the Jeffs scored four fewer goals in the 9-5 loss because of the disparity in goaltending. While Pietroforte stopped more than 50 percent of the 19 shots fired at him, his Ephs counterpart did better: Williams goalie Michael Gerbush stopped 19 of the Jeffs' 24 shots on goal, almost singlehandedly preventing Amherst from advancing.
While Cherney again played well for the Jeffs, scoring twice and assisting on two more goals, much of the Jeffs' usual offensive squad was quiet. First-year Thomas McDonnell, the Jeffs second-leading scorer, scored twice and assisted on a third goal, and fellow first-year Rob Denious was responsible for the Jeffs' final goal, but the next three leading scorers for Amherst failed to register a point.
That the loss was to archrival Williams, the fifth seed in the tournament, made the outcome perhaps more disappointing than otherwise. But the consequence was nevertheless the same: the game marked the end of a season in which the Jeffs went 7-8 overall and 5-4 in the NESCAC. The season itself was a significant improvement over last year's, in which the team finished at 4-10 overall and 3-6 in the NESCAC. First-year defenseman Mike Greenberg credits the team leadership for the drastic improvement. "The captains were awesome," said Greenberg. "We couldn't have asked for anything more from our seniors. You got to understand we just wanna lax."
NESCAC Notes
Williams advanced to the conference semifinals and will face second-seeded Wesleyan University. The other semifinal contest pits sixth-seeded Middlebury College against top-seeded Tufts University. Both games will take place at Tufts on Saturday, with the winners facing off on Sunday at 12:00.