LEXINGTON, VA – Senior
Lainie Pearson scored with 3:16 remaining in the first overtime lifting the Tufts University field hockey team into the NCAA Championship Game with a 1-0 victory over Williams College in today's national semifinal at Washington and Lee University.
Head coach
Tina Mattera's Jumbos (19-2) will play the winner of Friday's other NCAA semifinal between Middlebury College and Salisbury University in the NCAA final on Sunday at 1 PM.
This will be the fourth NCAA Championship final appearance for Coach Mattera's Jumbos. They will be playing for their second national championship. The 2012 squad was the first women's team at Tufts to win an NCAA Championship, and the Jumbos also earned NCAA Finals appearances in 2016 and 2018.
Today the Jumbos, playing in their sixth Final Four, were matched up with their NESCAC rival Williams. This was the third meeting between the teams this season, with the Ephs taking an early-season encounter 1-0 and the Jumbos winning in a shootout 3-2 (2-1 shootout) in the conference semifinals.
Though Tufts would finish with decent advantages in overall shots (15-6), shots on goal (8-3) and corners (10-2), the teams played evenly again today through 60 minutes as the game went to overtime.
Video review is available to teams at the Final Four, and Tufts used it effectively to help notch its game-winning goal. They challenged a ruling and with video review and were awarded a corner. The first corner led to another, with Pearson inserting. On the second corner, Rosenquest ran down the ball after it had bounced off her stick and rolled outside the right curve of the circle. From there she swept a pass through four players to Pearson at the left post and she knocked in the game-winner.
Just her second goal of the year, Pearson's contributions to the team don't always show up on the stat sheet. However, today's game-winning goal is added to the goal and an assist she scored in last weekend's Jumbo victories in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8.
The teams played a tight defensive game through three quarters today, with the Jumbos holding a 3-1 edge for shots on goal through 45 minutes of play. Williams goalie Ellie Smith made one save in each of the first three quarters, while Tufts' goalie
Lydia Eastburn had stopped the Ephs' first shot on cage with 1:30 remaining until halftime.
The action opened up in the fourth quarter with the Jumbos getting four shots on cage and the Ephs two, but Smith and Eastburn kept the game scoreless. The Jumbos had a 4-1 margin in corners for the fourth, but could not get one past Smith. Eastburn kicked out a dangerous shot by Kiki Higgins headed for the far post early in the fourth.
The shutout was the eighth of the season for the Jumbos as Eastburn made three saves. First-year
Kate MacKenzie, sophomore
Claire Casey, junior
Gabby Sousa and first-year
Eleanor Luft were key contributors in back.
Smith finished with seven saves in the Williams cage as the Ephs ended their season with a 16-4 record.
--JUMBOS--
