Bants Split in Final Weekend of Play

Well, it's taken me far too long to update this blog with the actual scores from our last weekend of play but here it is at long last!

Our regular season finale was played at home versus Amherst. Knowing it was an important game, and one that would propel us into the NESCAC tournament play for the weekend, we came out strong and took control early. After giving up the first goal of the game to the Lady Jeffs, we settled into our game plan and were able to build a 6-3 lead at the half, largely behind the steady play of Gina in goal. She was spectacular keeping Amherst attackers stifled for much of the half and giving our offense lots of chances to put points on the board on the other end of the field.

The second half started a bit slow for the Bants as Amherst attempted to make a run at the lead. They scored the first two goals of the half, pulling with one goal of our Bantam squad. After seeing our lead diminish, we responded with a critical 4 goal spurt that put us on top 10-5. That would officially put things out of reach for Amherst as they would register two more goals before Liz Bruno tallied the final goal of the contest (and her second of the game) to put the score at 11-7.

This was a great win for us as it means we finished the regular season 10-3 and beat Amherst in the regular season for the first time since 1998!

Unfortunately, there was a downside to our performance on Friday night, and that was that Rachel suffered a season ending knee injury in the second half of the game and would be absent for our first round NESCAC game vs Williams.

The Williams game was one packed with the excitement of tournament play. We knew the Ephs would be a tough match up as we had narrowly beaten them earlier in the season, 14-13. We were prepared for a battle and that's exactly what we got!

We took an early lead in the game and seemed to be playing with lots of confidence and poise. We put up the first 3 goals of the game off of scores by Caite, Remer and Disa. Unfortunately, Williams found their stride shortly after and rattled off 5 goals in a row to take a 5-3 lead. We would cut the lead to one by the break, but still trailed 7-6 at the half.

All things considered, we felt ok about the pace of the game. Battling 95 degree temperatures we had managed to play our pace of game and felt good headed into the second stanza. We got on the score board early again, scoring just 19 seconds into the half off of a free position by Kristin Phelps. Caite tallied the next goal, giving us the lead back just a couple minutes into the half. However, this was short lived as Williams would go on a big run, scoring the next 7 of the games next eight goals to take a commanding 5 goal lead.

While Williams was playing with a lot of confidence on offense and tiring out our defense, we never conceded the contest. Our Bants fought back huge after finding ourselves in a bit of a hole and managed to string together four of the next five goals of the game to come within 2 of Williams with just 1 minute to go. Williams was forced to call a timeout and we were convinced we would get the ball and make up the ground we needed in the last few seconds of the game. Unfortunately, we never got a chance to possess the ball, as we were whistled for a foul on the ensuing draw and Williams was awarded the ball and able to run out the clock.

While it was a devastating loss, the team showed huge character in our ability to come back from a big deficit and to play without all of our usual contributors. The season was a very successful one and one that we are all proud of!