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WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.
– Williams women's soccer (15-0-0, 11-0-0 in the
NESCAC) a
dvanced to the second round of the NESCAC tournament in a 4-0
defeat of the visiting Colby Mules (6-8-1, 2-7-1) in opening round
action this afternoon. The two-time defending
conference champions will host the remainder of the tournament next
weekend, with the two semi-final match ups on Saturday and the
championship game on Sunday.
The Ephs scored twenty-three seconds after the
opening whistle, setting the tone for an aggressive first half of
play. Dominating time on the ball for the
majority of the first forty-five minutes of the contest, Williams
scored three goals in the first twenty minutes on the
field. Ephs' senior tri-captain Sarah
Walmsley began the offensive spurt on an unassisted
goal. Walmsley collected off a deflection from a Colby
defender about fifteen yards from the goal, and ripped a ball to
the low corner of the far post.
Williams doubled their lead at the 12:00
minute-mark off a pretty sequence of soccer between Sara Wild and
Bret Eisenhart. Kara Duggan began the play at
mid-field, taking a free kick following a foul.
Wild headed the ball at the 18-yard box to Eisenhart who lofted the
ball with her head over a leaping Colby keeper for the 2-0
lead.
The scoring frenzy continued when just eight
minutes later Tyler Rainer added another tally to the Ephs side of
the scoreboard. Wild assisted on her second goal
of the game, feeding a cross to a speedy Rainer flashing on
her right side.
Rainer went one-on-one with the keeper, shooting a hard ball to
middle of the goal to bring the Ephs advantage to three.
After scoring a late goal in a challenging game at Middlebury just
two days ago, the Ephs needed a solid performance today to bring
their competitive play back to the field.
“We needed that Middlebury game to shake
us a bit,” said William's head coach Michelyne Pinard.
"We haven't been pressured like that in over two years, and it
helped us to work through some of the mental kinks."
Colby was able to keep Williams quiet for the
remainder of the first half, and placed significantly more pressure
on the ball in the second period to quell the Ephs offense, but
Williams would tack another goal to their total at the 66:07
mark. Annelise Snyder placed a perfectly timed
ball to teammate Samantha Vilboa on a breakaway play up
field. Narrowly avoiding an offside call, Vilboa
went on a foot race against her defender but out paced her to nail
a shot to the bottom left corner of net to bring the score to 4-0.
Lauren Sinnenberg recorded the win for the
Ephs, with two saves. With Julia Schreiber
out for the season with an injury, the All-American Sinnenberg will
serve as Willam's primary goaltender for the remainder of the
season. Colby keeper Loni Pisani had five saves in the loss.
With a perfect regular season behind them, the
top-ranked Williams squad is looking forward to the exciting part
of the season.
"At the beginning of the season the focus is
on tactics and thinking through the game," said Pinard. "It
is November now, and that necessitates playing at the next level
which means combining tactics with competing with fire."
The Ephs will look to add their
third-consecutive conference title to the record books next
weekend.
"The final four of NESCAC's is almost the same
level as the NCAA final four," said Pinard. "We have out work
cut out for us this weekend, but this team is excited and ready
about the challenge."
