LANCASTER, Pa. - The Haverford College field hockey team pushed seventh-ranked Franklin & Marshall College to the limit in Saturday afternoon's Centennial Conference tournament semifinal, but the host Diplomats pulled out the win over the Fords, 3-2, on an overtime goal with no time remaining on the game clock.
F&M (16-2) advances to the championship game of the league playoffs Sunday afternoon while the Fords close out their season with an 11-8 record.
Neither team was able to get on the scoreboard during the opening 35-minute half and the shot totals reflected that equality as each team recorded six shots. The Fords did generate more scoring chances off their shots forcing Diplomat goalkeeper Avery Koep to come up with four saves while her Haverford counterpart, Sydney Hyder, needed to make just two.
Second-half action was more explosive than in the first as F&M slipped out to a 2-0 lead on a pair of goals within the first 13 minutes of play. Haverford, as they have done all season, rallied from a deficit to even the score, though.
At the 59:06, mark Bridget Gibbons finished off a pass from Roxanne Jaffe after a penalty corner situation to score her fifth goal of the year, trimming the Dips' lead to just one.
Haverford earned the tying score when Jaffe and Mary Hobbs, coming off a penalty corner insertion, passed the ball back and forth inside the top of the arch until Jaffe found an open lane and blasted home the equalizer late in the 68th minute.
The Fords got off the first two shots of the overtime period, one saved by Koep and the other wide, while F&M matched that total but both were off the mark and wide of the frame. The Dips were granted a penalty corner opportunity with time expiring in the overtime period and made the most of the chance, scoring the game-winner on a shot by Becky Willert that deflected off a Haverford defender.
Hyder finished the game with four saves in the loss. Koep registered five saves and received help with a defensive save by Steph McDonald in the 14th minute of the contest.
Though the loss ends the season for Haverford, the team registered its second straight double-digit wins total, a feat not accomplished within the program since the 1990 and 1991 seasons. The Fords also reached the conference tournament for the third consecutive year after not reaching the Centennial postseason before the string began with the 2009 squad.