Wednesday’s Other Winners: Geneseo End Houghton’s Regular Season, Bloomsburg Make It Three Straight, Fetterman and Russell Score Twice
The big names weren’t the only ones winning on Wednesday. Four more results from around the country, and all four tell you something about where the postseason is heading.
Start in New York, where top-ranked Geneseo closed out Houghton’s regular season with a 5-2 win at Burke Field. Houghton kept answering. They trailed 1-0 early, rallied to tie it in the second quarter, then pulled back within one in the third. Every time, Geneseo had another goal. An insurance goal in the fourth settled it. Houghton finish the regular season 10-5 overall and 6-3 in conference play, with four shots and five penalty corners on the day, and they still have something to play for: as the No. 4 seed they host No. 5 St. John Fisher at 4:00pm local time on Saturday 31 October in the Empire 8 quarter-finals. That’s a home playoff game, and on Wednesday’s evidence Houghton won’t go quietly in it.
Bloomsburg are the form team in Pennsylvania right now. The Huskies, ranked No. 5, beat Mansfield 1-0 away on Wednesday night for a third straight win, moving to 12-3 overall and 5-2 in the PSAC. Lexy Freed scored the only goal, her third of the season and her second game-winner in a row after the overtime winner against Slippery Rock on Saturday. Taylor Fry, making her first collegiate start, got the assist on her first career assist. Goalkeeper Molly Bross needed only two saves for the shutout. Mansfield had their chances and couldn’t take them, and Bloomsburg stay on the road at Millersville on Saturday at 1:00pm local time. A team winning tight games like this, three in a row, is a team nobody wants in the playoffs.
In the MAC Freedom, Arcadia beat King’s 3-1 in Wilkes-Barre to keep their postseason push alive. Olivia Fetterman scored twice, opening the scoring in the sixth minute and sealing it in the 59th, with Ava O’Connor restoring the lead in the 48th after King’s had tied it in the 43rd. Arcadia outshot King’s 28-3 and had 11 penalty corners to King’s five. The win lifts Arcadia to 9-8 overall and 4-3 in the conference. King’s drop to 1-16 and 0-7 in the league. Arcadia finish the regular season at home against Stevens on Saturday at 12:00pm local time, and they’ll go into it knowing a win keeps the pressure on everyone above them.
And in New Jersey, William Paterson saved their best for late in the season. The Pioneers beat Manhattanville 4-0 at Wightman Stadium, a season-high four goals, with Sofia Russell scoring twice and adding her first collegiate assist. Russell set up Julia Dennehy in the eighth minute, scored herself in the 24th, then tapped in Dennehy’s pass in the 37th after Dennehy had set up Elizabeth Fitzharris for her first collegiate goal in the 29th. William Paterson are 4-14 overall and 0-6 in the NJAC, so this changes nothing about their season. But for Russell, Dennehy and Fitzharris, all getting firsts on the same night, it changes plenty. They close the season at home against Ramapo on Friday at 6:00pm local time.
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