AMHERST, Mass. – The No. 16 Amherst men's soccer team will play in the Third Round of the NCAA tournament for the eighth consecutive season after advancing 2-0 on penalty kicks following a 1-1 tie with No. 25 Springfield College on Sunday afternoon at Hitchcock Field.
The Mammoths (12-3-3) will face Rochester next weekend, with exact location and time still to be determined once the rest of the second round matchups conclude.
Lee Owen '18 came off the bench to play goalie for the penalty kick shootout, and he made a huge save on Springfield senior Tim Wood, while also benefiting from the Pride missing the target on three of their four shootout attempts.
On the other side, the Mammoths got penalty kick goals from Weller Hlinomaz '18 and Felix Wu '21 to cap off a hard-fought victory that saw Amherst take a 1-0 lead just under a half hour into play, only to have the Pride tie the game with sixteen minutes remaining.
Luke Nguyen '19 put the home team in front with a brilliant strike, a ball that knuckled from 30 yards out and tucked in the corner behind Springfield goalie Stewart Frank, who made three saves but also made way for a teammate in the shootout.
Michael Stone '21, playing in just his second NCAA tournament game of his career, made four saves for Amherst. The only blemish on his resume for the day was a Jimmy Wilcox goal off of a loose ball in the box, after Cam Powell got his head to the ball off a corner kick for the Pride.
Amherst had a 10-2 edge in shots in the opening 45 minutes, but the visitors were dangerous in the second half, outshooting Amherst 9-4 en route to the tying goal. The Mammoths took six shots in the overtime period, but were unable to score, despite an attempt from Hlinomaz rolling agonizingly along the goal line as the seconds expired.
Game Notes
- Springfield ends a historic season with a 15-1-3 record. Yesterday, the Pride captured the program's first ever NCAA tournament victory with a 1-0 win over Endicott.
- This was the first meeting between the teams since 2009. Prior that, the two sides had met every year between 1997 and 2009, and Amherst had a 12-1 record in those meetings.