10/30/07

Women's soccer wins semifinal shootout

FARMINGTON -- Melissa St. Amand (Windsor, ME), Ashley Tetreault (Spencer, MA) and Amber Murphy (Manchester, NH) each converted a penalty kick and netminder Melissa Demerchant (Presque Isle, ME) came up with a pair of stops as the top-seeded University of Maine at Farmington women's soccer team won the penalty kick shootout to get past No. 5 Elms in the North Atlantic Conference semifinals on Tuesday at Prescott Field.

The Beavers (14-4-2) are scheduled to host No. 2 Husson (13-6-1) in the NAC title game on Saturday. Game time is to be announced. The Blazers closed out their season at 7-9-2.

Despite holding a 21-6 shot advantage and an 8-1 command in corner kicks, Farmington needed PKs to slip past Elms. Conversions by St. Amand and Tetreault were each followed by stops from Demerchant -- who only played in the shootout -- as the senior goalkeeper stopped a bullet by Jamie Walsh (Springfield, MA) with a dive and blocked a kick by Caitlin Childs (Hingham, MA). After an exchange of goals by Murphy and Elms' Vanessa Pare (Belchertown, MA), Farmington's Liv Irons (York, ME) was snubbed by Elms goalkeeper Shannon Donnelly (Florence, MA) to leave the door open for the Blazers. A shot by Elms' Shannon Schickler (Adams, MA) went wide for the Beavers to advance to the title game.

Farmington had a number of chances to seal the match in regulation as Jackie Mrazik (Mount Vernon, ME) had a doorstep bid blocked by an Elms defender in the opening half and had a chance blocked high by Donnelly with under three minutes left in the contest. Irons just missed on a pair of attempts in the extra sessions and Elms had an opportunity when a Walsh boot was just inside midfield was booted around in the box, but neither could convert.

Kerry Kowalczyk (Topsham, ME) stopped two shots for Farmington in 110 minutes of play.

Donnelly finished with nine saves in the loss.

Box score