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MIT Women's Soccer Falls to Springfield College 1-0
The MIT Women's Soccer Team (8-5, 3-2) lost a hard fought battle to Springfield College (8-3, 4-1) 1-0 on Tuesday.
With the winner of the match to take sole position of second place in the NEWMAC conference, the game had a strong buzz about it and both teams came out hard.
Springfield's sophomore forward Nicole Hanewich was able to take advantage of one of the team's few early scoring chances when she made a long run down the right hand side of the field and slipped a near post shot past MIT senior captain goalkeeper Kat Vater in the 19th minute. Kat made a season high 12 saves in the losing effort, including a late save from point-blank range.
MIT but on some serious pressure late in the game, but Springfield escaped with the one goal victory.
With the loss, MIT drops into a tie for fourth place into the NEWMAC with Wellesley College.
Though Springfield out shot MIT 20-7 overall, the defensive backline of senior captain Mary Harding, senior Chi-Fong Wang, junior Karen Davie and sophomore Jodie Wu limited most of these shots to distance. Unfortunately, Springfield was able to score on one of its few shots in the box. Mary pushed forward late
in the game to help increase the attack and Chi, Karen, and Jodie held down the backline.
Forwards junior Amy Ludlum and freshman Liz Theurer, the top scoring strike partnership in the conference, fought hard all game against a very quick Springfield backline. Both Amy and Liz had several opportunities to score, but were unable to convert. Freshman Julia Roberts came of the bench to contribute up top.
Despite the overall team speed of Springfield, outside midfielders senior Andrea Staid and junior Janine Hopmans where able to get wide with the ball and serve some dangerous crosses in. Late in the game, both Dre, Janine and sub sophomore Andrea Bradshaw really helped put on the pressure up the flanks, which led to several good chances for MIT to knot the score.
Center midfielders senior Ashleigh Leonard and freshman Katie Pesce battled Springfield for the full 90 minutes, winning many of the 50-50 balls and keeping the team from building up much of an attack through the center of the field. Ash also pushed forward late in the game in an attempt to get on the scoreboard and Katie had several chances as well.
***Player of the Match***
For the tough battle against Springfield College, their teammates named seniors Chi-Fong Wang and Andrea Staid co-players of the match. Chi has really come of her own in recent games, playing with intensity and going into every challenge extremely hard. More often than not Chi comes out the winner and she won many
balls against Springfield, both in the air and on the ground. Chi was also very aggressive at stepping up and winning long balls knocked forward by Springfield's backline. Dre showed her excellent fitness and speed all match against Springfield, matching their speed on the flanks stride for stride both on attack and defending. Dre also hit a dangerous free kick in the first half and another dangerous corner kick in the second half. She also made numerous excellent runs with the ball to the corner flag and caused Springfield's defense consistent concern.
***NEWMAC Player of the Week***
Junior forward Amy Ludlum earned her second citation for NEWMAC Player of the Week in women's soccer after leading the Engineers to a 2-0 record in league play last week. She factored in all six of MIT's goals last week. In the five games leading up to the Springfield College match, Ludlum has totaled a staggering 27 points. On Tuesday last week, Ludlum scored two goals in a span of 12 minutes to lead the Cardinal and Gray to a 2-1 victory at Clark University. On Saturday, she scored two goals, including her second consecutive game-winner and added two assists as MIT defeated Coast Guard, 4-1. Ludlum's 13 goals this season is the fifth highest single-season goal total in program history, while she ranks fourth in the MIT's all-time annuls with 30 career finishes. In statistics released this week, the NCAA ranks Amy as 27th in the
country in Division III women?s soccer with 2.67 points per game.
The MIT Women's Soccer Team faces another crucial conference battle on Saturday when it travels to Worcester, MA to play Worcester Polytechnic Institute (5-7, 1-3-1) at 2:30 p.m.
--MJD
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