#8 Field Hockey Edges Bentley, 3-2, in NCAA First Round; Final Four Bound!
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – The No. 8 Merrimack field hockey team exploded for two goals and 20 shots in the second half, and despite a late goal by the visitors, the Warriors would hold on to down Bentley University, 3-2, in the NCAA First Round on Saturday night at Martone-Mejail Field, clinching the program's second consecutive trip to the Final Four next weekend.
Improving to 17-3 overall by means of the win, the Warriors will now match up against a familiar foe in Final Four host and the NE-10 Champion UMass-Lowell River Hawks, while the Falcons see their season end at 11-8 overall.
Bentley took the initial lead with a goal at 20:35, but the Warriors would reel off three uncontested strikes to move ahead, 3-1, between the end of the first half and the midway point of the second half. The visitors would cut the deficit to one with just less than five minutes to play, but Merrimack would hold on from there on out to punch their ticket back to the national semifinals.
"It's a great day for the program and a very sound win over a very, very good Bentley team," head coach Anne Rounce said afterward. "It's an honor to make it back to the Final Four for the second straight year, and we'll set our sights toward a strong week of practice to gear up for another tough match against UMass-Lowell."
After Bentley controlled most of the first half before eventually taking the lead, Merrimack promptly regained most of the match's momentum from there on out, as the Warriors finished with a 27-12 advantage in shot attempts and a 20-3 edge in shots in the second half alone.
Seniors April Daugherty (Wakefield, R.I.) and Jen Otis (Penacook, N.H.) would light up the scoreboard for the home side, while junior Jessica Otis (Pittsford, N.Y.) notched the game-winner with 13 minutes to go in regulation.
Senior goalkeeper Kerri Bergquist (Mashpee, Mass.), meanwhile, was stellar in net despite giving up the two tough goals. She finished with five saves compared to seven for her counterpart Julia Powell. If not for a few heroic maneuvers by Bergquist in the first half – including an aggressive move to break up a potential breakaway – the Falcons could have at the least been bidding to send the game to overtime.
After a near-miss by Meghan Talerman, who fanned on an open net earlier in the half, the Falcons got on the board at 20:35, as Beth Maguire put the visitors on the board on her 10th marker of the season. Sally James sent a pass up through the middle to Maguire, who cut through the circle and scored on the left side of the cage to make it 1-0 with 15 minutes to play in the stanza.
But the Warriors responded eight minutes later, as Daugherty and junior Candace Waldie (North Andover, Mass.) connected on a tremendous play. Jen Otis started the play with a pass at midfield up to Waldie. The nation's leading scorer directed a long send upward towards Daugherty, and the program's all-time leading scorer put together one of her most impressive scoring opportunities of the season.
Daugherty maneuvered through the left side of the circle, prompting Powell to leave her line to attempt to break up a potential breakaway. Daugherty calmly dribbled around the keeper and anther defender and slid a backhanded shot that somehow found the right-back corner of an open cage, tying the game at 1-1 at 28:08.
That tie would hold through the remainder of the first half and nearly 10 minutes into the second before Jen Otis gave the Warriors a lead they would never relinquish. The Penacook, N.H., native came up with a rebound after an initial shot by classmate Jamie Spano (Reading, Mass.) was saved, but Otis promptly ripped a bullet off Powell's pads and into the black to put Merrimack up, 2-1, at 44:25.
Nearly 13 minutes later, Jessica Otis scored the all-importance insurance tally with just less than 13 minutes to play. Rookie midfielder Christine Zubkus (Dover, N.H.) – who finished with three shots on her own accord – threaded a pass through the circle and to Otis, who slid a shot through traffic and into a seemingly open net on the right side to run up the lead to 3-1 at the 57:24 mark.
Maguire would draw the Falcons to within 3-2 after scoring on a rebound following an initial scrum in front of Bergquist, but that goal proved to be too little, too late, as the Warriors celebrated in front of a supportive crowd to cap off Homecoming weekend with the team's 17th victory of the season.
Merrimack will next face the River Hawks next Friday, Nov. 9, at 4 p.m. All Final Four matchups will take place at the Cushing Athletics Complex in Lowell, Mass., and the first national semifinal between defending champion West Chester and top-seeded Shippensburg will occur at 1 p.m.
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