Last week, it was Lauren Allymohamed at the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
This week, it was freshman Charlotte Verelst scoring the game-winning goal in overtime for the Massachusetts field hockey team, as the 10th-ranked Minutewomen defeated No. 7 Virginia 4-3 to advance past the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Ten minutes into the first extra period, Verelst intercepted a pass, dribbled into the attack zone and after her initial shot was blocked by a defender, sent the rebound into the net to send UMass into the second round.
“You could just feel the determination coming from her on the field that she was going to put that in the goal,” Minutewoman coach Carla Tagliente said.
With the win, UMass moves on to take on fourth-seeded Duke, who defeated New Hampshire 6-1 earlier in the day, to advance to the second round. The game is set to begin on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Duke.
The season almost ended for UMass in regulation, as the Cavaliers’ Riley Tata scored on a put-back shot with less than nine minutes left in the second half to give Virginia a 3-2 lead.
But the Minutewomen fought back, staying alive when a pass from Izzie Delario found the stick of Renee Suter, who put it into the net with just over a minute remaining to tie the score and send the game into overtime.
“We knew their goalkeeper was a little bit unorthodox and off-balance and would give up some rebounds,” Tagliente said. “Sure enough, that happened at the end there, and it was a scramble, and Izzie made a great pass across the cage to Renee.”
The two teams went back and forth throughout the contest. The Cavaliers opened up the scoring in the first half when Caleigh Foust tipped in a pass from Elly Buckley, but UMass evened the score later in the half when Hannah Prince scored on a penalty corner shot, tying the game at 1-1 heading into halftime break.
Virginia took the lead back less than five minutes into the second half when Foust scored again off a pass from Carissa Vittese. The resilient Minutewomen struck back just three minutes later when Lindsay Bowman deflected another penalty corner shot from Prince into the net to tie the score at two apiece.
“They kept going up one goal and we were chasing,” Tagliente said. “Every time we scored, we could feel this surge of energy and belief in this group and then we’d take a step back and have a goal against.”
Tagliente added that she was proud of the team’s ability to keep fighting despite never having a lead until the end of the game.
“That’s the difference maker,” she said. “This team dug deep and they believed in themselves.”
Jesse Mayfield-Sheehan can be reached at [email protected] and can be followed on Twitter @jgms88
