SWARTHMORE, Pa. - Ford Bohrmann tallied his second game-winner in as many days as the Haverford College men's soccer team upset 10th-ranked Swarthmore College, 1-0, in the Centennial Conference championship game Sunday afternoon at Clothier Field.
Capturing the Centennial title for the first time in program history, the third-seeded Fords receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament which they had come tantalizingly close to attaining in 2011 when they fell 3-2 on five rounds of kicks in the championship to Dickinson College.
Sunday's contest was the first time in the 20-year history of the Centennial that Haverford and the Garnet (14-2-2) vied for a team championship and consequently the long-time rivals engaged in a physical battle right from the start of the title tilt.
Neither squad was able to get much going early as only six combined shots were fired in the initial 35 minutes of play. Perhaps looking for more magic from the foot of Bohrmann, who had tallied the Fords' lone goal in a 1-0 semifinal victory over Dickinson in the closing seconds of the first half, head coach Shane Rineer inserted the junior forward into the lineup for the final 10 minutes of first-half play. Bohrmann once again provided the heroics with an unassisted, highlight-reel marker with 71 ticks left on the clock before the break. Corralling a high ball with his back to the goal, Bohrmann took a quick turn and fired into the top right corner of the net for his third of the season. Swarthmore goalie Peter Maxted (10-2-2) never had a chance against the sensational strike.
Haverford's defense took over from there as they held the Garnet without a shot on goal over the final 45 minutes of play. Time and again the Swarthmore attackers would be turned away by the Fords' impenetrable back line. Coming into the contest averaging two goals per game, the Garnet mustered just two shots on goal all afternoon. Haverford is now 10-1 this season when it scores the first goal of the game and 6-0 when it has the lead at the half.
Having lost to Swarthmore 2-0 on the same field eight days before on the final day of the regular season, the Fords reversed the outcome in resounding fashion by keeping the Garnet off the scoreboard -- a feat that none of Swarthmore's other opponents this season were able to accomplish.
Andriy Mshanetskyy made two saves on the day to extend his shutout streak to 180 minutes as he blanked the opposition on both days of Centennial tournament action. Mshanetskyy now has six shutouts this season and three in his last four outings.
The victory ends a 31-year hiatus from the NCAA tournament for Haverford. Having last qualified for the tournament in 1980, the Fords -- picked to finish fifth in the conference in a preseason poll of the league coaches -- will compete for a national championship for the fourth time in program history.
The conquest by the men also capped a banner day for the Haverford athletic program as the women's team secured its second Centennial crown (2012, 1995) and first conference tournament title with a 2-1 upset of top seed and host Johns Hopkins earlier in the afternoon.
Selections for the NCAA tournament field, beyond the automatic qualifiers, will be released Monday, Nov. 5 at 1 p.m. with first- and second-round games taking place on Nov. 10-11. Sectionals of the tournament are scheduled for Nov. 17-18.
The final four of both the men's and women's D-III tournaments will be fielded by San Antonio, Texas, at Blossom Soccer Stadium. Semifinals are on Nov. 30 with the national championship final taking place on Dec. 1.