Grantham, PA — Messiah and Lebanon Valley College met up for the programs' fifth consecutive MAC Commonwealth Conference Championship Saturday.
Naturally, the game did not disappoint.
Top-ranked Messiah used some top-notch defense and an increasingly outstanding possession game to hand the seventh-ranked Dutchmen a 2-1 loss at Anderson Field, earning the league's automatic NCAA berth as a result. Lebanon Valley — sporting an 18-3 record — will now await a plausible at-large berth when the selection committee announces the NCAA Tournament field sometime Monday.
Saturday, however, the day belonged to the Falcons, as a pair of Messiah scores sandwiched a fortuitous roll from the visitors midway through the second half. After defeating LVC on its home field by a 4-3 score Oct. 11, Messiah turned to its mid- and backfield to limit the Dutchmen to equaling a season-low scoring output — Lebanon Valley arrived with 108 goals on the year, a 5.4 goal-per-game average.
“LVC is a team that has scored a whole lot of goals this year, so for us to hold them to one was an incredible effort,” said Brooke Good, Messiah assistant coach. “Not just from our backs, but from our entire team. In reality, the defense from both sides was great today. We (Messiah and Lebanon Valley) tend to have a bit of a tradition in these (league championship) games. A game like this is what you expect.”
It was Messiah (15-1) that got on the board first, making the most of its third penalty corner opportunity of the game at the 8:32 mark. Sophomore Julie Barton received the feed at the top of the circle and whipped the ball to the far post, where senior Nikki Bailey was there to guide the ball past outstretched LVC keeper Caitlin Baro.
That score came following a pair of mishandled corners from the Falcons — with those services squirting through the front line in a rare sight.
Messiah's third attempt was the charm, however, and that was a good thing: Sensing the need for an equalizer, Lebanon Valley turned the game on its head, notching a 9-3 difference in first-half shots while keeping the ball on Messiah's defensive third of the field for the majority of the period.
That pace of play yielded some near-misses for the visitors, as the Dutchmen's Alex Wolfe pushed a shot just inches wide at the 9:46 mark. Falcons' junior goalkeeper Ashley Mowery made a pair of tremendous saves at both the 19:45 and 23:30 moments, efforts that would help her to a total nine saves on the afternoon.
Despite being pushed, it was Messiah that earned the final penalty corner of the period, using a counter-attack to set up its sixth effort of the half with no time remaining. Baro made a sliding stop and subsequent clear on the Falcons' effort, however, keeping the 1-0 score at the half.
“We started off strong and it was good to get an early goal, but as LVC always does when the going gets tough, they brought the pressure,” Good said. “We had a tough time clearing the ball and wound up packed in a little bit, so we talked about stepping up and taking away their dangerous forwards at halftime. If we could prevent them from possessing the ball, we thought we'd be able to really minimize the pressure they were putting on us.”
Almost like flipping a light switch, it was done. Messiah — ranked number one in the latest STX/NFHCAA Top 25 Poll — stormed out of the gates following the intermission, changing the area of play en route to an incredible 15-2 difference in second-half shots.
And while LVC was able to notch the game's equalizer at the 51:07 mark following a rare counter-attack, Messiah proved the final difference less than six minutes later, as a corner taken from sophomore Kourtney Ehly was slammed into the cage by Barton.
Serving from the right side, Ehly received a quick ball back to her stick and began pushing it toward the LVC cage along the end line. At the last possible moment, Ehly slotted the ball across the face of the goal, and Barton was there to slam it in for the game-winner at the 57:19 tick.
That goal snubbed what proved to be an aberration of a goal from LVC, as the Dutchmen sneaked a cross past senior — and tournament MVP — Beth Sandowich 16 minutes into the period. Wolfe was able to pick up the loose ball and record her 19th goal of the season, but it allowed only a fleeting moment of joy for the visitors.
“Beth's game really changed after that goal,” Good said. “It was almost as if she said, 'this game is not going to end this way.' I thought we worked much harder in our possession game (in the second half) and our stick-to-stick passes were much more crisp. Tactically, we stepped it up and won a lot of one-on-one play. We were relentless. Our forwards came up big defensively in trying to take away what LVC wanted to do, and because of our pressure we were able to force them into some critical errors.”
Sandowich led a back line with her MVP award. Junior Brittany Godshall was also impressive, coming up with a defensive save as well.
Messiah's 15th MAC Commonwealth title overall, the team will now await word on Monday for when and where its next game will be and whom it will be against. That information will be posted on GoMessiah.com as soon as it is made available.
“We really set out today to work hard and concentrate on playing the type of hockey that we want to play,” Good said. “We entered the game very confidently, and I think we played very well. There were some mistakes along the way, but this was another good step on our way to NCAAs.”
