#20 Women's Soccer Downs Stonehill 1-0; Hosts Lowell in NE-10 Quarterfinals
EASTON, Mass.- The No. 20 Merrimack women's soccer team topped Stonehill Wednesday afternoon for a 1-0 victory in the final match of the 2010 regular season. The Warriors improve to 12-4-2 overall and 11-3-1 in the Northeast-10 Conference with the win. The Skyhawks sank to 8-8-2 on the year and 6-7-2 in the league with the loss.
Each team registered two shots in the first half but the score remained 0-0 after 45 minutes of action.
Senior Jessie DeGraan (Braintree, Mass.) picked a perfect time to deposit her first goal of the year. DeGraan netted the game's lone score in the 78th minute of the match to give the visitors a 1-0 advantage.
Merrimack held on for the final minutes of the contest to pick up its 12th victory of the season. The Warriors owned an 11-8 margin in shots for the game while putting seven on frame and allowing Stonehill just four.
DeGraan also helped keep the home team off the scoreboard by breaking up a breakaway on the defensive end. Kiley Horne (Scituate, Mass.) also came up big on a breakaway by coming off her line and heading the ball away from the oncoming striker.
Horne turned in a four-save performance to earn her sixth clean sheet of the year for Merrimack. Amy Wheaton made five saves for the Skyhawks in the game.
"We played really hard today and I felt that we controlled the majority of the play," said head coach Gabe Mejail. "Kiley had a couple of key saves and our defense played flawlessly. It was also great to see Jessie play really well, scoring the game-winner close to her hometown of Braintree was a great exclamation point on her career."
After clinching second-place in the Northeast-10 Conference, the Warriors earned the right to home field advantage in the first round of the conference playoffs. Merrimack will welcome the seventh-seeded team, UMass Lowell, to North Andover October 31. The quarterfinal match is slated for a 1 p.m. start time.
"Today's win was a great way to finish off the season. It gives us some confidence heading into the playoffs," added Mejail.
