BEVERLY, Mass. – The nationally ranked No. 24 Ithaca College field hockey team earned its first NCAA victory since 1997 as the Bombers took down No. 25 Endicott College, 3-2, in overtime in a first round matchup at North Field on November 8. The Bombers are now 15-6 on the season and will move on to play No. 4 Johns Hopkins University (18-1) on Saturday, November 11 at 10 a.m. in Baltimore.
Ithaca's 15th victory matches the third-most in program history as the team in 1983 went 15-5.
The Bombers got on the board first as
Emma Garver staked IC to a 1-0 lead at the seven-minute mark of the first quarter on a penalty stroke.
Endicott would tie the game up at 1-1 early in the second quarter following a green card issued to the Bombers. It took the Gulls less than a minute after the card was shown to capitalize as Lindsay Bruns scored off a pass from Reagan Hicks.
In the first half, Endicott outshot the Bombers, 7-6, but IC held a 6-3 edge in corner chances. The Gulls took all seven of their shots in the second quarter as
Alex Clough made two of her seven saves on the night during that 15-minute session.
The Gulls came out aggressive in the third quarter and fired off eight more shots, but the Bombers were the first to strike in the quarter as
Catherine Papa scored in the opening seconds of the 40th minute off a pass from
Meara Bury and IC took that lead to the final 15 minutes of regulation.
Endicott knotted things back up at 2-2 with 12 minutes remaining in the fourth period with a Hicks goal and assisted by Meghan Lehouiller following a corner attempt.
The Bombers had two more chances to end the game in the fourth but a shot by
Ainsley Grant was saved and another by
Brenna Schoenfeld went wide.
IC then faced a scare in the final 1:16 as
Sarah DeVito was shown a card to give the Gulls an advantage. Just 15 seconds later, Endicott drew a corner but was unable to produce a shot and the game went to overtime.
Early in the extra session, Endicott broke free and set up a 1-on-1 scoring chance, but Clough was up to the task and made a crucial save. The Gulls managed to corral the loose ball and fired another shot and Clough had the wherewithal to get back into position and kick away another save.
IC earned its first corner chance of overtime with four minutes left but the tip by
Juliana Valli went wide.
Just over a minute later, the Bombers picked up another corner chance with 2:55 to go.
Meara Bury sent in the insert to Garver, who then passed it over to
Madeleine Goodman and she sent the ball towards cage, which was deflected in by
Natalie Descalso for the game-winning goal with 2:46 left on the clock.
Endicott would outshot the Bombers overall, 26-17, and corners would move in favor of the Gulls, 12-10, but the only two of overtime went to IC.
