The Team That Kept Going
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The sound of the Amherst women's soccer team singing along in their locker room to Pat Benatar's "All Fired Up" was still audible halfway across Roy Rike Field as the sun rose over the beautiful day in mid-November. The scene was Ohio Wesleyan University, host of the 2001 NCAA Division III Final Four, where the Jeffs would face Wheaton College of Illinois in the first national semifinal later in the day. The song, an obscure 1988 pop hit, had become the theme to the Jeffs' implausible run through the post-season, a streak that had them in Delaware, Ohio, playing in the national semifinals for only the second time in school history, just over one month—and 10 consecutive wins—after the low point of the season, a 2-0 loss at archrival Williams on October 13.
"It was frustrating because we had totally outplayed Williams in the first half, but when they came back at us in the second half we folded," said junior goalie Brooke Diamond. "If someone had told me after Williams that we'd make it to the Final Four, I don't think I would have believed it. It had been such a rough season for us already."
The season hadn't started out rough, however, as the 2000 ECAC Champions opened the 2001 campaign with four consecutive wins, a streak capped by a dramatic come-from-behind, 2-1 overtime victory at Connecticut College on September 22, where senior Cathy Poor tied the game with just four minutes left in regulation before first-year Tracy Montigny netted the game-winner 4:37 into the second sudden-death overtime.
Though the win over Conn vaulted the Jeffs into the national rankings as the number-19 team in the country, it would be the squad's only appearance in the NSCAA poll during the regular season, as they struggled to a 2-4-1 record in their next seven games. The dismal stretch began with back-to-back losses to Trinity and Springfield Colleges the following week, the first time the Jeffs had lost consecutive games since 1994, and continued to and through Williams, where the two-goal defeat left the Jeffs 6-4-1 through 11 games, in danger of missing the post-season altogether for the first time since 1990.
"It was in a team huddle amid tears and shouting [after the Williams loss] that we all realized that we were a lot better than we had been playing," said Diamond. "After the loss to Williams there was a new sense of urgency," agreed Poor. "We felt that we were in a must-win position from that point on, and that the Mount Holyoke game was the beginning of the rest of our season."
It would be a good beginning to season number two.
Against the overmatched Lyons of Mount Holyoke, the Jeffs struggled through an inconsistent first half before breaking into the scoring column in the 38th and 44th minutes on goals from senior Tri-Captain Margaret Rubin and junior midfielder Brianna Porco. The second half, however, would be a different story as the visitors exploded for seven goals—a single-half school record—to break the game wide open. Nine different players registered goals in the 9-0 blowout, and the Jeffs, for the first time in a month, finally looked like the same team that had opened the season 4-0.
"The Mount Holyoke game was a major turning point," Head Coach Michelle Morgan concluded later. "It was the first time we had really played well together all season."
Two days later, the Jeffs faced a tougher test: hosting Little III rival Wesleyan in both teams' regular-season finale. The Jeffs, with a 4-3-1 conference record, needed a win or a tie to clinch a spot in the seven-team NESCAC Tournament, while the Cardinals, who entered the game with a 2-10-1 record, were looking to play spoilers.
Early on, it did not appear they would get the chance. Putnam headed home a cross from sophomore Jenny Rossman in the 23rd minute to give the Jeffs a 1-0 halftime lead, as the hosts dominated possession throughout the game's first 60 minutes. The Cardinals, however, refused to go away, tying the game in the 62nd minute on a blast from first-year student Corinne Case.
In what would become a recurring theme in the next few weeks, though, the Jeffs charged right back. Less than two minutes after the Wesleyan goal, the Jeffs answered, as Poor finished a feed from first-year student Lee-Jay Henry for the game-winner in a 2-1 Amherst victory. With this win, the Jeffs ended the regular season in a three-way tie for third place in the NESCAC, with the quarterfinals set for fewer than 24 hours later at Bates, where the Jeffs drew Tufts University, the 2000 NCAA national runners-up.
Bates was familiar ground for the Jeffs, who completed a thrilling run through the 2000 ECAC Tournament as the fifth-seeded team with a 3-2 triple-overtime victory over the Bobcats in the championship game, after knocking off fourth-seeded Springfield College, 1-0, in the quarterfinals and advancing past top-seeded Wellesley College on penalty kicks. It would be at Bates, the same place where the 2000 season had come to a dramatic close, that the Jeffs would begin a new year of post-season magic.
In hindsight, the Jeffs' first opponent in the 2001 post-season was only too appropriate. In 2000 it had been the overachieving Jumbos who had received the third seed in the NESCAC Tournament, going on to the NCAA Tournament and putting together an improbable run to the NCAA Championship game. This time around, the third seed was the Jeffs, and history was about to repeat itself.
First, the Jeffs had to survive an early goal from the second-ranked team in the NSCAA pre-season poll, as Jumbo forward Elizabeth Tooley deflected a long cross past Diamond in the fourth minute for an early 1-0 Tufts lead. Unfazed, the Jeffs struck back, as Poor rocketed a shot off the crossbar three minutes later that deflected right to Montigny, who tapped a left-footed follow into the back of the net to tie the game at one.
The score stayed knotted at one through halftime, as the game turned into a wide-open battle in the midfield. In the second half, the Jeffs' trio of rookie strikers took over, with Montigny and classmate Adrienne Showler combining for a pair of early scoring chances. Lee-Jay Henry came on for Showler and made her presence felt immediately. Henry, who scored the game-winner in the Jeffs' 2-1 regular-season win at Tufts, broke past the Jumbo backline on a perfect through-ball from Montigny in the 64th minute before blasting a right-footed shot just inside the left post for a 2-1 Amherst lead. Sixty-nine seconds later, Montigny and Henry hooked up on exactly the same play, with Montigny slotting a through-ball 10 yards ahead of Henry, who ran on the pass before blasting another shot into the left side of the net, giving the Jeffs a 3-1 cushion that the defense held on to.
With the win, their first ever in the NESCAC Tournament, the Jeffs advanced to the conference semifinals the following weekend on the same Williamstown field that saw the 2-0 loss to the Ephs two weeks earlier; now they were going up against second-seeded Middlebury College, the same Panther team that had recorded its fourth consecutive win over the Jeffs with a 2-1 victory in Amherst on October 6.
Senior striker Sarah O'Keefe, one of six Jeff seniors who had an 0-4-1 record against Middlebury all-time, got the scoring started after a scoreless first half, finishing a feed from Henry to give the Jeffs a 1-0 lead. It would prove to be short-lived as Middlebury junior Meg Bonney, already with five career goals against Amherst, equalized with a goal just one minute later.
Not to be outdone, Poor, who had scored the Jeffs' lone goal in the October 6 loss to Middlebury, responded with what proved to be the game-winner just 30 seconds later, blasting a shot from the top of the box past Panther keeper Ali Connolly for a 2-1 Amherst edge. Diamond, who would finish with a career-high 16 saves, kept Middlebury from tying the game again, and the Jeffs broke things wide open down the stretch with three more goals in an eight-minute span. Poor began the flurry with her second strike of the afternoon, an unassisted tally at the 78:30-mark, before Montigny added a pair of insurance goals down the stretch, finishing feeds from Poor and sophomore midfielder Jenny Rossman, respectively, in the 84th and 87th minutes. All told, the Jeffs, who had struggled to put teams away during the regular season, broke out for five second-half goals, demolishing the Panthers, an NCAA Tournament team in 2000, and earning a measure of revenge against the same Middlebury team that had ended the Jeffs' 1999 season with a 2-1 overtime victory in the ECAC semifinals.
The margin of the win over Middlebury significantly improved the Jeffs' chances for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, a possibility that had seemed so improbable two weeks earlier. To guarantee a bid to their first NCAA championships since 1998, however, the Jeffs had a tall task ahead of them, as the host Ephs, the 11th-ranked team in the nation, boasting a perfect 14-0 record, awaited them in Sunday's NESCAC championship game.
Early on, the Jeffs picked up right where they had left off in the second half of Saturday's pasting of Middlebury. After a gorgeous one-on-one move to break past the last Williams defender, Showler sent a right-footed rocket from the right wing into the left end of the net to give the Jeffs a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute.
Thanks to another tremendous effort from Diamond and the Amherst defense, anchored by Tri-Captain Margaret Rubin and junior back Katharine Shipley, Showler's goal stood up into the game's waning moments; but the Ephs, who were on the offensive for most of the second half, finally broke through when C.C. Ciafone finished a deflected corner kick with just 6:07 remaining in regulation. The Ephs threatened again in the final minutes of regulation and in the first sudden-death overtime period, but three saves from Diamond, including a diving stop in overtime, kept the Jeffs' season alive.
In the second overtime the Ephs continued to press but could not put anything together in the midfield. Finally, after back-to-back turnovers in the midfield, the Jeffs had a run at the Williams goal in the 119th minute when Rossman found Rubin on a cross from the left wing. Rubin got her head on the ball and—after a scrum in front of the goalmouth—the ball somehow ended up on the left foot of Montigny, who sent a shot toward the left post that deflected off a Williams defender and into the back of the net for the dramatic golden goal, her fourth tally of the NESCAC Tournament and her second overtime game winner of the year.
"It was Williams. It was revenge. It was for the NESCAC Tournament and for the automatic bid to NCAAs," said Rubin. "It was perfect."
The win over Williams, just 15 days after the disheartening 2-0 loss on the same field, gave the Jeffs their sixth-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament and their first since 1998, snapping the Ephs' 14-game winning streak in the process. Still, the Ephs, courtesy of an at-large bid, were seeded above the Jeffs in the NCAA New England regional, with Williams picking up the third seed and the Jeffs seeded fourth.
For the only time during the post-season run, the Jeffs had a bit of a laugher in the opening round against Endicott College, champions of the Commonwealth Coast Conference, as Poor scored twice and assisted on three other goals to lead the hosts to a 6-0 victory.
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Though the Jeffs had already faced a national powerhouse in Williams, the win over Endicott set up the Jeffs' first meeting of the year with a national giant, as third-ranked Wheaton College, the number-one team in New England, awaited the Jeffs in the regional semifinals at Wheaton. The Lyons—they share the nickname with Mount Holyoke—brought a 20-0 record into the contest and had outscored their opponents in 2001 by a 100-5 margin, including a 49-1 spread at home where they had won 31 straight, four shy of the all-time NCAA record. On paper, it was a mismatch of epic proportions. But, with the experience of the NESCAC Tournament, this was a different Amherst team.
"With each win we picked up more and more confidence," said Diamond. "When we stepped on the field against Wheaton, there was something in the air. You could feel it. We could look around during warmups and look into each other's eyes and know that we were going to win this game."
As with the NESCAC semifinal against Middlebury, the Jeffs struggled through much of the opening half, with Diamond and the defensive unit keeping the Lyons' prolific offense at bay and sending the game to halftime scoreless. Also, as in the Middlebury game, the Amherst attack came alive after halftime.
This time, it happened quickly. Off the opening whistle Henry broke past the back of the Wheaton defense before blasting a shot past Lyon goalie Jessica Broomhead. Less than half a minute into the second half, the Jeffs had a 1-0 lead over the hosts. The Lyons, like the Panthers the week before, answered right back, with sophomore striker Tracy Prihoda netting her NCAA-best 38th goal of the season just three minutes later to equalize.
Undeterred, the Jeff offense continued to press and, exactly as they did one week earlier, they broke the game open with a flurry of goals, beginning with Montigny taking a feed from junior Katelyn McCabe and firing a shot into the lower-right corner of the net for a 2-1 Amherst advantage.
Eight minutes later Montigny, who scored in each of the Jeffs' first five playoff games, breaking her own school record of four set at the beginning of the season, increased the lead to 3-1, rocketing a shot from the left wing off the right post and into the back of the net at the 70:06-mark. Seventy-two seconds later sophomore Sara Elkins sealed the deal, lofting a perfect shot from 35 yards out that caught Broomhead out of position, ducking just under the crossbar and into the back of the net for a stunning 4-1 Amherst advantage.
"It seemed like Wheaton wasn't ready for a fight," said Rubin. "Because our season had its ups and downs, we had learned our weaknesses, while teams like Wheaton really didn't seem to know what to do when they were down a goal."
If the Saturday win over Wheaton mirrored the previous weekend's over Middlebury, Sunday's showdown in the regional finals against Western Connecticut State University followed much the same script as the Sunday NESCAC title tilt against Williams. Again, the Jeffs jumped out to a first-half lead, with Poor finishing a header early on to become the first player in school history to reach the 100-point mark for her career.
Again, the Jeffs fell victim to a game-tying goal in the second half, as the Colonials knotted the game at one thanks to a lucky break, when a right-to-left cross deflected off the left post directly to midfielder Heather Babington, who pounded a left-footed shot into the Amherst net at the 59:21-mark.
Again, the game went to overtime, thanks to timely goalkeeping from Diamond. This time, however, the Jeffs dominated in the extra periods, with Montigny nearly winning it in the 94th minute only to have a right-footed rocket from the left wing slam off the right post and back out into play. In the second sudden-death period, Montigny set Poor up with a perfect cross from the right wing, and the senior one-timed the pass into the back of the Western Conn net, lifting the Jeffs to the NCAA Elite Eight for the first time since 1997. Poor, who was named the NESCAC Player of the Year earlier in the week, broke the single-season and all-time school goal-scoring records with the second overtime game winner of her career, picking up her 15th goal of the season and her 40th career tally. More importantly, the Jeffs, in capturing the New England crown as the fourth-seeded team in the region, lived to play another week.
Amherst's playoff road trip, which had gone from solid, with the wins over Tufts and Middlebury, to surprising, with the win over Williams, to spectacular, with the wins over Wheaton and Western Connecticut, next set out for Geneva, New York, and the Herons of William Smith College. William Smith, the fourth-ranked team in the nation in the final NSCAA regular-season poll, brought a 17-game unbeaten streak into the national quarterfinal, having escaped from the New York regional with a penalty-kick win over Union College the previous Sunday.
Whereas the Amherst offense had been on display in the regionals, with the Jeffs exploding for 12 goals in the four games, the quarterfinal against William Smith would highlight the Jeffs' defense, as the combination of Diamond, Rubin, Shipley and first-year Mary Sarro-Waite shut down the high-powered Heron offense.
With most of the possession in Amherst's defensive third, the Jeffs were left to limited scoring opportunities in transition for their offense, and it was in transition in the 12th minute that Showler would score the game's only goal. After Poor received a long ball on the left wing, the senior was tackled in the box by a William Smith defender whose tackle deflected the ball right to Showler. The rookie took one step then drilled a shot past All-American Heron goalkeeper Leah Cornwell, giving the visitors all the scoring they would need.
Defensively, Diamond posted five of her seven saves in the opening half, including one as part of a chaotic two-minute sequence that produced the Herons' three best scoring opportunities of the day. After Shipley ran down a long ball that had skidded past Diamond in the 41st minute, clearing it off the end line and out of play, the Herons would threaten again less than a minute later, only to have another shot cleared off the end line with a header by Sarro-Waite. Thirty-five seconds after Sarro-Waite's clear, the Herons seemed to have the equalizer but the Amherst rookie deflected a shot that Diamond dove on right in front of the Jeffs' net to keep Amherst's lead at 1-0 going into halftime. Keeping William Smith from equalizing before the break proved to be the difference, as the Herons never came as close after halftime and the Jeffs held on for the 1-0 victory and their second-ever trip to the NCAA Final Four. The giant-killing Jeffs, ranked ninth in New England—and unranked nationally—in the final regular-season NSCAA poll, joined second-ranked Ohio Wesleyan University, fifth-ranked Wheaton College of Illinois, and sixth-ranked Willamette University in the national semifinals on that beautiful Friday morning at Ohio Wesleyan.
Once more, the overachieving Jeffs were a prohibitive underdog against Wheaton of Illinois. Once more, the giant killers lived to play on. In the 73rd minute, Henry, who terrorized the Thunder of Wheaton with a half-dozen scoring opportunities in the game, drew an obstruction call in the Wheaton penalty box, earning an indirect free kick for the Jeffs from 11 yards out on the left end line. On the equivalent of a short corner, Rossman played a perfect ball to the far post, where Poor, thanks to the halftime adjustment, was all alone. The senior headed the ball back across the goalmouth into the left side of the net, and the goal stood up as the Jeffs held off a late Wheaton run for the 1-0 victory.
"We were Cinderella. No one expected anything of us at the Final Four," said Diamond. "We pulled off yet one more upset—that was the most amazing thing—proving to people that we weren't a fluke and that we were a great team, even on the national level."
The Jeffs, who had long since accomplished that, picked up their school-record 16th win of the season—and 10 in a row—with the victory over Wheaton. By this time, Coach Morgan more than earned the designation she won from her coaching peers as the National Soccer Coaches Association of America/Adidas NCAA Division III New England Coach of the Year.
But the Amherst team still had one more test waiting, with host Ohio Wesleyan advancing from the semifinals with a 2-1 overtime win over Willamette.
Yet, with no more tomorrows to play for, the championship game would turn out to be an anticlimax. In a very evenly matched affair, the host Battlin' Bishops picked up the game's only goal in the 38th minute when forward Katy Sturtz hit a spinning, right-footed blast from the top right corner of the penalty box that evaded Diamond and settled in the top left corner of the net.
The Jeffs' post-season magic ran out late in the second half when Poor, who would be named the NCAA Tournament's Most Outstanding Offensive Player with a tournament-best 14 points, hit the crossbar twice in short order, with a header off a Rossman corner deflecting back into play before a left-footed follow also slammed harmlessly off the metalwork. The Bishops thwarted the Jeffs' remaining scoring chances, and Amherst's amazing post-season winning streak was finally curtailed at eight games, leaving the Jeffs as the 2001 NCAA Runners-Up and the second-ranked team in the final NSCAA post-season poll, on the heels of one of the most remarkable post-season runs in the history of the NCAA women's soccer championship. No team had ever played six games in the NCAA Tournament before, nor had any team with a first-round game advanced to the finals since the field expanded in 1994. It was, in a word, remarkable.
"If someone had told us that this is how it would end up, I would have said ‘no way,'" said O'Keefe. "But it did, and it was unreal. From the smiles to the tears to the bruises to the pride I felt every time I put on the purple and white, it was amazing." "It was the greatest team experience I have ever been a part of in my life," added Diamond. "It was unforgettable," concluded Poor, who would subsequently be named one of 11 First-Team NSCAA National All-Americans. "We came together like no other soccer team I've been on. It was our commitment to each other that made us win when we needed to, and I wanted to spend another weekend in a hotel with my team, another bus ride, another meal."
As metaphors go, they exhausted most of them. They were the David to the NCAA's Goliaths. They were "road warriors," playing eight of their nine post-season games away from the friendly confines of Hitchcock Field. They were "giant killers," knocking off five teams ranked in the top 11 in a six-game stretch during the run. They were Cinderella, writ large. They were greater than the sum of their parts, and then some. More than anything else, they were a team, in every sense of the word. Indeed, in the end, that is the story behind the story. It wasn't that they got to the NCAA championship game, it was how they did it—together, as a team, united by a common desire to keep playing until they ran out of opponents, and to play on after that.
The day before the regular-season finale against Wesleyan, one of the players scrawled on the whiteboard in the Jeffs' locker room the simple question and answer: "Where do you want to be on Monday afternoon? Now play like it."
Six Mondays, nine consecutive wins and one heartbreaking championship game loss later, Monday afternoon, November 26, found many of the Jeffs still "playing like it," practicing, together, on Hitchcock Field.
It couldn't—and shouldn't—have ended any other way.