Women
The 19th-ranked women’s team pulled a 10-9 overtime stunner from the jaws of a hungry Wesleyan squad last Saturday on Gooding Field, helping to fortify their postseason plans.
Junior Kelley Trapp, the team’s leader in both points and assists, got things started for the Jeffs with a feed to first-year Wyatt Davis for a 1-0 lead a little over a minute into the game. The Cardinals roared back, bookending a goal by senior Hannah Walker, off of another Trapp helper, with two goals to take a 4-2 lead with 11:21 left in the first half.
In one of the countless momentum shifts that would come to define this game, the Jeffs scored the next three goals, with sophomore Allison Horwitz and first-year Hillary Denson putting Amherst ahead 6-5 at the half. “In terms of maintaining the tempo of the game better, we have worked really hard to stay calm and collected on both ends of the fields, whether we are up or down,” reiterated Horwitz. “If we do that, we can make smart decisions and both maintain and regain momentum.”
The start of the second marked another back-and-forth exchange between the teams, as they traded a pair of goals before senior co-captain Kathleen Scheld and Trapp each swooped into the Cardinals’ nest and snatched a 9-6 lead for Amherst.
But with less than 10 minutes remaining, Wesleyan coordinated a furious comeback, breaking through the Jeffs’ defense for third and final time with 1:42 left in regulation. After each team’s last-second salvoes fell by the wayside, the players marched into overtime.
That’s when Horwitz took things into her own hands, slashing through the Wesleyan defense on her way to an unassisted, across-the-body shot that found a nook on the left side of the goal with 29.1 seconds remaining in the first overtime. “When I took that shot, there wasn’t much going through my head. I tried to treat it like any other shot...I tried to read the goalie, fake and put it past her... mostly though, I was just praying it went in,” recalled Horwitz.
From there, the Jeffs’ defense was airtight, as the second overtime ended without incident. Horwittz, Davis and Trapp each ended the game with three points apiece, while Harik helped make up Amherst’s 22-30 shot deficit with her 13 saves.
Trinity College will step onto Gooding Field at 5 p.m. this Friday in a crucial NESCAC matchup of two nationally ranked teams.
Men
The men’s team also laced up against the Cardinals over the weekend, but got battered 16-8 in Connecticut.
A more inauspicious start would have been tough to come by for the Jeffs, as they surrendered the first five goals of the game to Wesleyan before sophomore Dan Routh and senior co-captain Thomas McDonnell helped Amherst climb back into things with consecutive goals with 2:19 left in the opening quarter. Even then, however, Wesleyan quickly extinguished any hopes of a comeback, scoring again with just 59 seconds left in the quarter.
The second quarter was much of the same, as sophomore Evan Redwood mustered the Jeffs’ lone goal, compared to the three that Wesleyan compiled. The third quarter provided a bit more of a spark for the Jeffs, as sophomore Alex Fox and Redwood fired consecutive shots into the Cardinals’ goal to make it a 10-5 hole with 7:27 remaining in the quarter.
Wesleyan’s response was typical of their performance on the day, however, as they blitzed sophomore goalie Sam Jakimo just 23 seconds later for a quick score, before tacking on two more goals to inflate the score to 13-5.
Despite their shortcomings, the Jeffs had a veritable chance to creep back into striking distance to start the fourth, as a Wesleyan player got called for a three-minute penalty¾leaving the Jeffs up a man. Scoring only once in that juncture, Amherst remained in contention for a win after McDonnell sandwiched a Redwood score with two of his own to slash the lead to 13-8 with 9:57 left in the game. But the Jeffs faltered down the stretch, as their disadvantages in shots (51-29) and ground balls (45-33) came back to haunt them.
The loss continued what has become a one-sided rivalry over the past decade, as the Jeffs last beat the Cardinals in 1999. Redwood, Routh and McDonnell combined for 10 points on the afternoon, while Jakimo racked up 17 saves in the effort.
The Jeffs will need a win when they visit Trinity College at 4 p.m. on Friday if they have any hope of hosting a NESCAC Championship Quarterfinal game on Sunday when the that championship begins.