Colleges: Amherst men’s soccer team gets past Middlebury, punches Div. 3 Final Four ticket
Published: 11-19-2023 5:21 PM
Modified: 11-19-2023 5:21 PM |
The Amherst College men’s soccer team is headed back to the Final Four.
Ben Clark-Eden scored the lone goal for the NESCAC champion Mammoths in the first half, and Max Landa kept his eighth clean sheet of the season to lift Amherst to a 1-0 win over Middlebury in the NCAA Division 3 quarterfinal round on Sunday at Hitchcock Field in Amherst.
The Mammoths (17-2-3) will face Washington & Lee in the NCAA semifinals on Dec. 1 in Salem, Va.
Clark-Eden’s goal, assisted by Simon Kalinauskas, came in the 23rd minute to stake the hosts to a 1-0 lead. Amherst held a 17-9 edge in shots, including a 6-1 edge in shots on goal. Landa stopped the only shot he faced for the shutout.
The quarterfinal win came on day after a Sweet 16 victory over Occidental College that saw Kalinauskas score off a header in the 106th minute Saturday to lift the club to a wild 1-0 win.
Messiah 3, Amherst 1 – The 4th-ranked Amherst College women's soccer team saw its season come to an end Saturday, as it allowed three goals in a game for only the season time all season in a 3-1 loss to host Messiah College in the Sweet 16.
The Mammoths finished their season 18-3-1.
Amherst’s Ella Johnson scored the lone goal for the visitors, tying the game 1-1 with 15 minutes remaining in the first half.
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UMass 2, Providence 1 (OT) – It was an impressive weekend sweep for the Minutemen, which grinded out an OT victory on Saturday at the Mullins Center after earning a hard-fought road win in Rhode Island two days earlier.
The Minutemen improved to 8-3-1 overall, 4-2-1 in Hockey East play.
Junior captain Ryan Ufko scored his fourth goal of the season 1:04 into overtime to seal the deal for UMass. Freshman goalie Michael Hrabal made 32 saves in a Herculean effort between the pipes.
"Our goaltender stole one tonight," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "We weren't very good tonight. You could just sense on the bench there wasn't the energy that was there Thursday night, but our goaltender kept us in it. We were out-shot and out-chanced pretty badly. Discipline-wise, we had to kill too many penalties, but this is a good group of kids. We talked about it after the second period, digging deep into our character of the team, the heart and soul of the team and find a way and the kids found a way. It was just an elite play by an elite player in overtime to score the goal, but that's a Michael Hrabal victory tonight."
Trailing late in the third period, UMass managed to tie the score as graduate student Lucas Vanroboys picked up the puck from senior Aaron Bohlinger and fired a shot from the blue line that Jack Musa redirected home with 2:50 remaining.
Monmouth 74, UMass 62 – The Minutewomen stormed back from trailing by as many as 18 points to take the lead in the fourth quarter but came up short to Monmouth 74-62 on Sunday afternoon.
UMass (1-4) trailed 31-13 with 6:40 to go in the second quarter before chipping away to eventually take a 56-54 lead with 5:45 to go.
Stefanie Kulesza scored a career-high 19 points and added four boards for the Minutewomen while Bre Bellamy chipped in 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting to go along with seven rebounds.
Jermany Mapp gave UMass its first lead of the day at 56-54 with 5:45 to play while defensively, the Minutewomen held the Hawks to a 1-of-9 start in the final 10 minutes of play. But Monmouth closed the game on a 20-6 run to pull away for the win.
Next up for UMass is a trip to Cancun, Mexico to play in the Cancun Challenge beginning Thursday against Green Bay (1:30 p.m.).