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Brigid Behan, Gettysburg
Box Score / courtesy of Gettysburg Athletic Communications
BALTIMORE – Senior Brigid Behan (Newport, R.I./Portsmouth Abbey) scored the game-winning goal in the 62nd minute and the Gettysburg College women's soccer team defeated sixth-ranked Johns Hopkins University 2-1 in a crucial Centennial Conference (CC) match Saturday afternoon.
Behan also assisted on the first goal for the Bullets (13-3-1, 9-0-1 CC), who finish the regular season in first place in the Centennial Conference and earn the right to host the conference tournament next weekend. They also won their ninth match in a row – the team's longest winning streak since a 10-gamer in 1998 – and finished undefeated in conference play for the first time since 1999.
Gettysburg's 13 wins are the most in team history since 2006 and the most in current head coach Matt Garrett's eight-year tenure.
Johns Hopkins (15-3, 9-1 CC), which had allowed just one goal in its previous six matches, saw its 13-match winning streak come to an end. The Blue Jays had also been unbeaten in their previous 27 Centennial Conference regular-season matches.
Junior goalie Eliza Gray (South Orange, N.J./Columbia) made four saves for a Gettysburg defense that limited the Blue Jays to a season-low eight shots.
Gray registered her first save in the 17th minute before the Blue Jays struck just over six minutes later, when Sydney Teng dribbled past two defenders in the center of the field and found the corner of the net to make it 1-0 with 22:02 showing on the first-half clock.
Less than two minutes later, junior Lauren Schapiro (Stamford, Conn./Stamford) tied it up with her fifth goal of the season. Behan passed the ball into the left corner of the box, where Schapiro chipped a beautiful shot from the endline over the goalie and just inside the far post. Schapiro has now scored in three straight matches and registered a point in five consecutive games.
Hopkins' Clare Aranguren made her only save on a shot by sophomore Hannah Theurer (Darnestown, Md./Northwest) in the 31st minute, and it was a 1-1 game at the break.
Gray stopped a header in the 49th minute for her second save before Behan struck 12 minutes later. Senior Georgia Ferguson (Bethel, Conn./Bethel) initiated the goal with a cross from the right side, and Behan deposited the ball into the bottom-left corner of the net for her third goal of the season and her second game-winner.
Hopkins fired off four shots over the final 29 minutes, but Gray made a pair of saves, including one in the 87th minute as the Bullets held on to defeat Hopkins for the first time in 11 tries, topping the Jays for the first time since a 2-0 victory in 2005.
The Centennial Conference semifinals will be held on Saturday at Gettysburg while the championship game will take place on Sunday back at Clark Field. The tournament begins on Wednesday with fourth-seeded Muhlenberg College hosting fifth-seeded Swarthmore College in a first-round match. The Muhlenberg-Swarthmore winner will play Gettysburg in the semifinals while Johns Hopkins, the second seed, will take on third-seeded Ursinus College in the other semifinal. Gettysburg will be making its fifth-straight Centennial Conference playoff appearance and hosting the tournament for the first time since 2004.