Box Score AMHERST, MA—The Williams and Amherst men's soccer teams met three times this season. They played 310 minutes of hard-fought, leave-it-all-out-on-the-field soccer.
They tied the first game. Amherst won the second. They tied the third, played underneath a waning sun and before a sizable batch of rabid supporters for each side that made the trip to Hitchcock Field on Sunday.
In those 310 minutes, the Ephs scored exactly zero goals. Nothing. Zilch. Goose egg.
It doesn't matter. None of the other stuff matters now.
The Ephs are going to the Final Four.
Let's say that again, because it sounds too good to be true.
The Ephs are going to the Final Four.
They're going because the back line—anchored on the wings by two freshmen, Jonathan Westling and Noah Grumman, who had scarcely played fullback all season—held Amherst's potent offense without a goal for nearly two hours and largely neutralized Spencer Noon and Jae Heo, two of the most dangerous players on a most dangerous team.
They're going because of a healthy dose of sheer luck that directed five Amherst shots, from Heo, Julien Aoyama, Milton Rico, Noon and Aoyama again, off the crossbar and away from the goal.
They're going because they have Than Finan, the goalie who has never lost a shootout, and a collection of penalty takers who have the nerve and the composure to shut out all the hubbub around them and bury their kicks.
Most of all, they're going because of coach Mike Russo, who for the fifth time in his storied career has coached a team to the Final Four, with this squad almost certainly being the most unlikely of them all. Yet when it was all over and the noise had died away, Russo was as modest as ever.
"We're just delighted right now," opined the coach, using the same words he has spoken after nearly every one of the team's 16 wins this year, as though this one was no different.
Things didn't start out so well for the Ephs, who were outshot 7-1 in the first half as the Jeffs dominated play and held a monopoly on all scoring chances. After Heo hit the crossbar in the game's fourth minute, the Jeffs continued to press forward and nearly got on the board in the 19th minute when Aoyama sent a cross into the box from the right side that Finan bobbled and let get behind him. But Brendan Caslin's shot was blocked by Matt Ratajczak, who cleared the ball out of danger.
With just over three minutes to play in the period, Aoyama used some clever footwork to get free in front of the Ephs goal and fire a laser beam from 25 yards out that went right through Finan's hands and clanged hard off the bar, back out into the scrum. Rico managed to get hold of the ball and launched a right-footed shot that completely froze Finan and, improbably, hit the bar again. The Ephs, it seemed, had taken luck to a whole 'nother level; somehow, the half ended scoreless.
Remarkably, both teams managed to lift their intensity levels for the second half after a fiery first half, but once again it was the Jeffs who maintained almost complete control right from the first whistle. But every shot—the Jeffs managed 11 in the half—came just short, often within inches, of breaking the stalemate. An Aoyama shot in the first minute…over the net and into the woods. A Chris Lerner rip after one of his impossibly long throw-ins…deflected out by another Jeff for a goal kick. A Noon header off a feed from Lerner…off the bar. Remarkably, Finan went untested for nearly half an hour into the period, but he rose to the occasion when he needed to: a falling save on a Federico Sucre header in the 74th minute, followed by a leaping stop of a Noon attempt from distance five minutes later, kept the sheet clean.
As the clock wound down and the shadows grew long, the Ephs offense finally began to generate some offensive buzz of their own. In the 77th minute, Mohammed Rashid pushed a cross into the box from the right side that skipped through everyone, forcing Jeff goalie Thomas Bull to sprint off his line and grab the ball away from an onrushing Michael Madding in the nick of time.
The Ephs nearly won it ten minutes later, with Rashid again starting the play. This time, he calmly held the ball near midfield before sending a brilliantly simple pass down the left flank for Geoff Danilack, who turned in by far his best performance of the year off the bench. Here, Danilack took about five touches before crossing into the box, where User Kushaina met the ball in stride, beat his man, and got off a rolling left-footed shot that just eluded the far post.
Just when overtime seemed inevitable, Gabriel Wirz made a bid to end the game in Amherst's favor. With about 15 seconds left, Wirz met a bounding ball perfectly with his laces and sent a high shot the just dipped on net. But Finan rose to the occasion and made his best save of the day, tipping the ball over the net and effectively sending the game into overtime.
To their immense credit, the Ephs built off their late spurt in the second half and was the better of the two teams in the first extra period. But a pair of late Rashid attempts were thwarted by Bull, while yet another incisive cross from the sleek forward managed to sneak through a crowd of bodies untouched in the 94th minute and came to naught.
The Jeffs thought they had won it with just under two minutes to go when Aoyama fired off another twisting left-footed shot, only to see the woodwork deny him yet again.
For better or for worse, the game was headed to penalties, which Russo accurately described as, "a terrible way to end it."
In the opening round, Finan and Bull proved their respective mettles by stopping Lerner and Ratajczak, respectively. But an Aoyama misfire in the third round gave the Ephs the advantage, and gave Patrick Ebobisse a chance to win it in the fifth round.
"I had missed a couple during practice, so my confidence was a little shot," admitted Ebobisse afterward.
He made no mistake this time though, sending a left-footed shot rolling into the right corner to send the Ephs to San Antonio. Ebobisse flung his arms in the air before sprinting toward the Williams fans, who poured out onto the field and celebrated alongside a group of players that had just accomplished the unthinkable.
"I felt the need to step up and lead the team back [to the Final Four]," said Ebobisse after the game, referring to the Ephs' last run to San Antonio in 2009, when the midfielder was just a freshman.
Afterward, Russo offered one possible explanation about the final outcome.
"It's hard to go through a whole season without losing a single game," said Russo, referring to the Jeffs' undefeated ledger entering the game. "Unfortunately for them, today was the day."
Russo was wrong there, though. The game goes into the books as a tie, leaving the Jeffs with a 17-0-3 record. The Ephs are now 16-1-4. According to the stat sheets, Williams failed to beat Amherst in three tries this year.
These Ephs couldn't care less. And now, they're aiming higher.
"We're definitely not satisfied with this result," said Ebobisse. "We want to get two more wins and win the national championship."
Up next for Williams is Ohio Northern, which defeated Montclair State earlier today to punch their ticket to Texas. The two squads will face off on November 30, with kickoff scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET, with the finals scheduled for noon the following day. That leaves the Ephs with almost two full weeks to savor their victory in an instant classic that will undoubtedly become legend in the years to come.
To savor, and to dream about the future.
"We're going to Texas, dude!" yelled a jubilant Dan Lima to anyone who would listen to him. "We're going to Texas!"
He sounded as though he still could not completely believe the fact himself.
But that didn't make it any less wonderful.
One more time:
The Ephs are going to the Final Four.
