HAVERFORD, Pa. – A 5-0 Centennial Conference win by the Haverford College women's soccer team over visiting McDaniel College Saturday afternoon clinched a postseason playoff berth, and coupled with a Muhlenberg College loss elsewhere allowed the Fords to finish third in the final league standings heading into next weekend's league tournament.
Haverford (12-5, 7-3 CC) out shot McDaniel (3-10-3, 2-8-0) by a 30-3 margin and limited the Green Terror to one shot on goal during the Fords' dominating effort.
Katie Van Aken opened the scoring in the contest's ninth minute burying a shot high into the back of the net off a cross to the far post from Elizabeth Levitan. Van Aken took a turn providing the assist on the next goal feeding Michele Buonora a ball about 12 yards off the end line about five minutes later for a 2-0 Haverford lead.
Van Aken added a second goal midway through the first half and earned another assist on the finaly tally, a Sophie Eiger score from six yards out into the left left corner behind McDaniel keeper Jan Woolley in the 82nd minute.
The Fords' fourth goal of the game, coming in the 51st minute, came off the foot of senior and all-conference defender Maura Schiefer who launched a penalty kick into the lower left corner just past the outstretched arms of Woolley.
Senior net-minder Kayleigh Herrick-Reynolds had an easy day in recording her 19th career shutout needing to make just one save. Woolley took the loss for McDaniel but finished with seven saves during her busy day.
Prior to the game the squad's six seniors –Buonora, Jamie DeNizio, Herrick-Reynolds, Levitan, Schiefer and Kristin Sockett – making their final appearance on the Walton Field grass were honored with a brief ceremony celebrating their stay at Haverford which is culminating with a fourth consecutive trip into the league playoffs, a feat no other graduating class in program history has accomplished.
Third-seed Haverford will face No. 2 seed Johns Hopkins next Saturday in Carlisle, Pa., for one of the two semifinal matches in the Centennial tournament. Dickinson College, the regular season champion and tournament host, will square off against Wednesday night's 4-vs.-5 winner in the other semifinal.