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BY CONOR CASEY

In print | October 25, 2007

As Yogi Berra once said, “It’s deja vu all over again.”

So goes the story for the women’s soccer team (11-2-1, 6-2-1 CC) who clinched its second ever Centennial Conference playoff spot in as many years Tuesday night with a 1-1 tie against local rival Haverford College (8-6-2, 5-2-2 CC).

Swarthmore drew first blood against its fellow Quaker school when Kirsten Peterson ‘11 and Hannah Purkey ’11 combined to score 13:45 into the match. The goal was Purkey’s second of the year, and would keep her team in the lead for the remainder of the first half.

Eight and a half minutes into the second half, however, the Fords struck back. Haverford forward Ryan Hedrick notched her third goal of the year, taking advantage of a penalty kick awarded the Fords on a questionable foul, where the Haverford player was struck in the box after she had already kicked the ball, according to head coach Todd Anckaitis. The score remained knotted up at 1-1 for the remainder of regulation time and through two overtime periods.

Swarthmore controlled the game early on, out-shooting Haverford in the first half 8-3. The Fords regained some of that momentum in the second half, however, getting off seven shots to the Garnet’s four. Overtime was another story. Swarthmore got off six shots over the two additional periods, four coming from Megan Colombo ’11, while Haverford did not manage any. Nevertheless, none of this made any difference. When the final horn sounded, the score was still 1-1, giving Swarthmore one point in the conference standings.

“It was a little frustrating,” Anckaitis said. “But it gave us the result we needed.” Players echoed this sentiment.

“It was a tough situation,” midfielder Lizbeeth Lopez ‘10 said. "There was a lot of wind, and we’re not used to playing on grass. We played hard, but we were unfortunate on the [penalty kick]."

“We ran out of time,” midfielder Monica Cody ’10 said. She believes the team needs to “focus on getting goals first. We need to make that the primary focus when we step on the field.”

Anckaitis was of a similar mind. “We could have done a lot of things differently,” he said. “The first 20 minutes of the second half we didn’t look like our team.”

Swarthmore, currently in third place in the conference standings with one game left to play, came into the match against Haverford having played two conference matches earlier in the week, beating Ursinus College, who at the time held first place in the conference, 4-0 at home on Oct. 17, and then losing to Gettysburg College 1-0 on the road last Saturday. In the win over the Bears, Colombo recorded a hat trick to bring her season total to seven goals, and Sarah Reece ’11 added a goal and assist of her own.

Despite a 16-6 shot ratio in favor of the Garnet in its game against the Bullets, Gettysburg came away with the win after a goal in the 75th minute by Erin Miller. Gettysburg’s Danielle St. Pierre had 9 saves in the game to keep Swarthmore off the board. With the loss, Swarthmore dropped out of the national top 25 Division III rankings, as evaluated by the National Soccer Coaches of America, but remained the favorite among teams in the conference, with a ranking of fifth in the Middle Atlantic region, two places higher than seventh-ranked Johns Hopkins University, according to http://www.nscaa.com.

“I feel really good about where the team is right now,” Anckaitis said. “We’re frustrated about the last two results, but once you get in the playoffs, it doesn’t really matter what happened during the season.”

The Garnet plays its final game of the regular season this Saturday at home against conference foe Franklin & Marshall College, before playoffs begin the following week. Game time is 4 p.m.

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