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Desmarais, Nadler & MIT Women Win NEWMAC |
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 Cambridge, MA - MIT Women's Soccer (12-5-2, 5-2-2) won the program's first ever New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference Championship on Sunday, November 8, 2009 with a 1-0 victory over defending champion Springfield College (12-5-3, 5-2-2) at Wellesley College.
The team earns the conference's automatic berth into the 2009 NCAA Division III Women's Soccer Championship, the program's first ever appearance in the NCAA tournament.
MIT head coach Martin Desmarais and assistant coach Lauren Nadler are
both EMFC staff coaches and currently work with the club's U16 girl's
team.
In its 24 year history MIT Women's Soccer has only one other championship: the 1989 team won the NEW 8 Championship.
MIT
rolled through the 2009 NEWMAC tournament with three successive clean
sheets: 4-nil over WPI, 1-nil over Wheaton College and 1-nil over
Springfield.
 Sophomore forward Alisha Lussiez was the hero again
against Springfield in the finals. Just about 24 hours after scoring
the game winning goal in a 1-nil victory over Wheaton College (17-3-2,
6-1-2) in the tournament semifinals, Alisha nicked another game-winner
against Springfield. Her championship winner came in the 57th minute
when freshman defender Connie Park's in-swinging corner kick from the
left side found Alisha in the box on the far post and the striker
volleyed the ball into the net with the inside of her foot on her first
touch.
Despite what became an impending outcome down the home
stretch of the game as MIT seemed to get stronger as the game wore on,
Springfield had the better of the play to start the game and spent much
of the first 15 minutes of the match in MIT's half peppering the goal
with shots.
Overall, shots for the game were almost dead even at
20-19 in favor of Springfield, but in the first half it was 13-8
Springfield and many of them came early. Freshman MIT goalkeeper Meghan
Wright kept her team in the game during the first wobbly stretch making
nine saves in the first half. She had 14 saves total for the game: a
career high. The win was her fifth shutout of the season and she has
combined with junior goalkeeper Katy Olesnavage to shut out MIT's last
four opponents.
Corner kicks for the game were 5-1 in favor of MIT and Springfield recorded six saves.
Halftime
served well to settle down MIT and the team came out much stronger in
the second half, moving the ball around very efficiently and
frustrating Springfield's aggressive pressing tactics.
Alisha's
goal 11 minutes in really hit Springfield hard and the team seemed to
lose any momentum allowing MIT to carry the rest of the play and bring
home the NEWMAC crown. Alisha had another great scoring chance in the
75th minute, this time running onto the ball on the wide right flank
and stepping on it to face up one of Springfield defenders who waited
between Alisha and the goal. Alisha gave her the slip by dummying
inside and then sliding past her toward the near post, bearing down on
net and ripping a shot that just caught the right post
above the keeper's hands and ricocheted wide.
Junior
captain Lauren Hernley - the 2009 NEWMAC Player of the Year -- had one
of the most dominant performance of her career, going all 90 minutes in
the center of the pitch and seeming to pop up wherever the team needed
it most including several massive headers in the defensive box and also
numerous long tracking back runs to win the ball back and stop
Springfield's counter attack. Lauren also led the team with six shots,
two on frame, including a phenomenal left-footed effort from about 30
yards out that was just knocked down by Springfield's keeper in the
first half.
In a short ceremony after the game, MIT's captains
Katie Pesce and Lauren Hernley accepted the NEWMAC Championship Trophy
from a league representative and brought the cup back to their team to
celebrate. The trophy will stay with MIT until the 2010 NEWMAC Women's
Soccer Tournament.
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