Box Score MIDDLEBURY, VT – In their last regular season game of the fall, the Williams College field hockey team (10-5/NESCAC 6-4) fell to Middlebury (14-1/NESCAC 9-1) by a score of 4-1. Due to this outcome, Williams secured 5th place going into the NESCAC tournament resulting in an away matchup against Amherst. Middlebury clinched 2nd place going into the conference tournament where they will be facing off against Hamilton at home.
The first half proved very successful for the Panthers. Although Williams came off to a strong start, generating two penalty corners and a shot within the first 3 minutes, Middlebury would soon dominate the play, scoring the entirety of their goals throughout the half.
The Panther scoring opened at 12:16. Off of a Middlebury corner by Caroline Knapp, Pam Schulman received the ball and passed it off to Shannon Hutteman. Hutteman took a shot, elevating the ball above the Williams defense and towards Molly Freeman. Freeman, who was standing closer to the cage, lifted her stick above her head, timed the speed of the ball flying towards her, and one-time spiked the ball into the back of the net.
At the 20:37 mark, the Panthers would strike again, this time by sophomore Annie Leonard. After her first shot of the play was blocked by Eph goalie, Margaret Draper, Grace Jennings of the Panthers collected the rebound and pushed it back to Leonard for her second attempt. This time, her shot was successful, connecting with the back of the net and tallying her 16th goal of the season.
Less than two minutes later, at 22:22, Middlebury scored their third goal of the game. Grace Jennings contributed another assist as she sent the ball several feel off the ground towards Bridget Instrum, who also one-timed the ball out of the air, directing it past Draper.
While Middlebury carried most of the momentum throughout the first half, Williams had a hopeful offensive chance at 24:49 after they earned a penalty stroke from a defensive error off of a corner. Hannah Goodrick took the stroke, where she successfully shot the ball past Panther goalie, Emily Miller, but the goal was disallowed due to an offensive foul. At 26:37, Middlebury would once again bring the ball down to the Williams half and Annie Leonard would find the back of the net for her second goal of the game. "Obviously it is disappointing to give up 4 goals over a 12 minute span," said Ephs' head coach Alix Barrale. "We struggled in our defensive circle and Middlebury capitalized on our mistakes. We also missed 3 on the line opportunities in the opening 5 minutes."
In the second half, Williams picked up their pace and had more control over the game. They prevented the Panthers from scoring for the entire 35 minutes, and even collected a goal, which was the first time Middlebury had been scored on since October 6th against St. Lawrence. At the 63:37 mark, the Ephs received a corner where Goodrick sent the ball to Annie VanWagenen at top of the circle. VanWagenen passed to her left to junior Katie Gallop, who collected the ball and blasted a shot towards the net. Rachel Brissette, who was positioned closer to the cage, redirected Gallop's shot past Emily Miller, to end Middlebury's 5-game shutout streak.
"The score is somewhat deceiving since we controlled the ball for the majority of the second half," remarked Barrale. "We never backed down or gave up. We fought hard to the end and will continue to do so when we face Amherst on Saturday.
Middlebury outshot Williams 14 to 5 and tallied 6 penalty corners to Williams' 5. Margaret Draper had 10 saves for the Ephs and Emily Miller had 4 for the Panthers. Both teams will be playing in the quarterfinal round of the NESCAC tournament this Saturday.
