Sudden death. Never had the term been so fitting as it was on Sunday afternoon as the Massachusetts women’s soccer team dropped its fourth straight game, a heartbreaking 2-1 double overtime match to Xavier. The loss, coupled with LaSalle’s 2-0 win over St. Joseph’s, eliminated the Minutewomen from postseason play.
The Minutewomen, who finished the season at 11-6, including 7-4 in the Atlantic 10, needed either a win or a tie against the Musketeers in order to qualify for their eighth consecutive A-10 Conference Tournament. However, April Kennedy had other plans as she scored her first goal of the season in the 116th minute, putting her squad into the postseason and ending UMass’ 2001 campaign and the college careers of the Minutewomen’s five seniors Brooke Bartlett, Katelyn Jones, Kat Machamer, Julie Podhrasky and captain Sarah Cook.
Kennedy, the A-10 Player of the Week, got the winner against the run of play as fellow midfielder Lauren Garber won the ball at midfield and advanced on the UMass defense before hitting a perfect through ball to the streaking Kennedy. Kennedy took the ball in stride before placing it under Podhrasky and into the corner of the net setting off a pair of vastly different scenes. As the Musketeers swarmed Kennedy and celebrated wildly, the Minutewomen dropped to their knees and could only think of what might have been.
“I was shocked, completely shocked,” said UMass freshman midfielder Carly Turman. “I saw Kat [Machamer]’s face and that made me start to cry. I feel really bad for the seniors, I feel we let them down.”
In overtime, the Minutewomen were less than four minutes from completing their mission of qualifying for A-10’s, but that was not the closest that they had come on the afternoon.
Ahead 1-0 in the 88th minute the Minutewomen surrendered a throw deep in their defensive third. As had been the case all day, sophomore midfielder Nicole Giesting took the throw, placing it deep into the box. However, none of the Minutewomen were able to get a head on this one and the ball bounced around in the box before senior defender Margaret Broe was able to get a foot to it, hitting it into the top left corner of Podhrasky’s net and giving the Musketeers a life line.
“Coach told us this was the way they attacked, work it down the sides until she can put one in the box,” Turman said. “It’s almost like a corner and it just got to us after 90 minutes.”
UMass got off to the perfect start just 35 seconds into the match when Jones put the Minutewomen ahead 1-0. Bartlett was able to get around her defender on the right flank before delivering a low, hard cross that Jones was able to direct past Xavier goalkeeper Megan Veith and into the Musketeer net.
“[That goal] gave us so much confidence and we were playing so well,” said Maroon and White sophomore midfielder Janelle Khouri who made just her second start of the season against Xavier. “I thought we were going to win.”
Following UMass’ dream start, both sides would have a number of quality chances, most coming in the contest’s second half. Machamer nearly put the game out of reach when a low Jones cross, similar to the one Bartlett hit in the first half, skipped just past the outstretched toe of the sliding midfielder.
At the other end Podhrasky was called upon in the 55th minute to palm a goal bound shot by Xavier’s Laren Giesting, Xavier’s leading scorer, over the bar for one of her four saves on the afternoon. Just a minute before Giesting’s drive, Broe had a vicious right-footed strike carom off the face of the crossbar and away from danger.
However, those would be the final bullets that the Minutewomen would dodge in 2001, as the Musketeers would strike twice in the match’s waning moments, bringing sudden death to the Minutewomen’s season.
