CHESTERTOWN, Md. – Katie Van Aken's goal in the early minutes of Wednesday night's Centennial Conference women's soccer match-up between Haverford College and host Washington College was the only score in the visiting Fords' 1-0 victory, a win that pushes Haverford to the brink of an assured berth in the league's postseason playoffs.

Haverford (11-1-4, 6-1-2 CC) sits alone in third place in the conference standings and a win in the season finale -- Saturday at 1 p.m. against visiting Swarthmore College -- would clinch a spot in the semifinals of the Centennial's postseason tournament. The narrow loss by Washington (2-12-1, 0-8-1) Wednesday keeps the Shorewomen without a win in league play.

Van Aken took a long pass from teammate Meg Boyer in the game's sixth minute and found the back of the net, beating Washington goalkeeper Tori Ripple with the first shot in the game to give the Fords a 1-0 lead.

Haverford goalie Robin Chernow wasn't forced to make a save until the 22nd minute but needed to add two more first-half saves to keep the Fords ahead by a goal entering the halftime break.

Though both teams accumulated more shots over the second 45-minute half than in the first, neither had luck getting shots on frame allowing Chernow to add just one more save and Ripple to add only two more. Chernow finished with four saves in the win while Ripple registered six saves in defeat.

The Fords have now defeated Washington for the 13th-straight time and registered a seventh-consecutive shutout victory over the Shorewomen with Wednesday's blanking.

Haverford, with six league victories, sits above Dickinson College (10-4-1, 6-3 CC) and Swarthmore (11-5, 6-3 CC) in the league standings by virtue or two more points gained from a pair of ties in conference action. The Fords defeated Dickinson earlier in the season and the only team other than Swarthmore that could finish with at least six wins would be Franklin & Marshall College who, by tiebreaker rules, would still fall below Haverford in the standings because of the Fords' regular season victory over the Diplomats.