Middlebury, Vt. – The Amherst College Lord Jeffs will make their fifth straight trip to the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championship game after a 4-3 overtime win over the Trinity College Bantams in a semifinal game played at Middlebury College. The Jeffs improve to 19-5-2 and will take on Middlebury, a 4-0 winner over Bowdoin, in the title game on Sunday at 2 p.m. The Bantams fall to 18-4-4 with the loss.
Amherst jumped out quickly with a pair of goals in the game's first 3:09. The Jeffs struck just 1:33 into the game with a power play goal from Geneva Lloyd. Randi Zukas made a quick pass to Lloyd on the doorstep, who finished for her 11th of the year. The lead increased to 2-0 at 3:09, when Courtney Hanlon scored on a rebound after a shot from Emily Vitale had been saved. Trinity jumped back in the game midway through the period at 10:49, when junior forward Celia Colman-McGaw (Manchester, Conn.) scored the first Bantam goal. Senior captain forward Kim Weiss (Potomac, Md.) won a race to the puck behind the net, before sliding a pass to Colman-McGaw for a quick redirect in the slot.
The Bantams tied the contest at 9:53 of the second period when Colman-McGaw skated down the middle and snapped a shot into the top right corner to make it a 2-2 game. Trinity took its first lead of the game at 14:20, when freshman Macauly Bauer (Sheboygan, Wisc.) scored the first of her career with a blast from the high slot. Amherst tied the game at 3-3 with 1:18 left in the period when Hanlon found Ellen Swiontkowski on the power play for her eighth of the season. Neither team scored in the third period, forcing the game into sudden death overtime. Amherst ended regulation with a 20-16 shots advantage.
Amherst had a great chance 3:35 into overtime, but Bantam rookie backstop Alexa Pujol (New Canaan, Conn.) made a great glove save on Brittney Evans. The Jeffs broke through at 5:46, with Swiontkowski taking advantage of a turnover and wristing home a shot from the right side for the game-winner. Sinead Murphy played the first two periods in goal for Amherst, (3 GA, 10 saves), while Caroline Hu (25:46, 0 GA, 5 saves) picked up the win. Pujol finished with 20 stops for the Bantams.
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