Bates fought its way to top

Bates College of Lewiston upset its way out of the bottom half of the pack and won the Eastern College Athletic Conference women’s soccer championship Sunday at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

Bates, seeded sixth, beat No. 4 Smith College 1-0 on an unassisted, happy-birthday goal by senior midfielder Colleen O’Brien, who closed out her career with a record-setting season of 38 points on 15 goals and eight assists.

Coach Marti Kingsley’s Bobcats ended the year at 13-3 while No. 4 Smith finished as ECAC ru But to make it to the ECAC championship round, Bates had to avenge a 1-0 regular-season loss a week earlier to in-state rival Bowdoin College of Brunswick. The Bobcats did just that in Saturday’s hard-fought semifinal.

that pitted the two against each other.

Evidence of the intensity of the competition between these teams is the fact the outcome was decided on a series of alternating penalty kicks. The final score: Bates 2-1 in double overtime. Bates sent Micaela Corkery, Colleen O’Brien, Janine Henry, Sarah Crothers, and Jenna Maconochie up against Mary Salmon, Heather McKay, Carol Thomas, Amy Neher, and Alicia Collins, succeeding on five of its kicks to Bowdoin’s three.

Both goals in that game were scored in the first period. Bates’ Crothers, assisted by Beth Whidmann, scored at 26:17, and Bowdoin’s Carolyn Wickenden, assisted by Katherine Gould, scored at 29:38. In goal, Amy Brunner made six saves for Bates and Caroline Blair-Smith 13 for Bowdoin, closing out its season at 8-6-2.

Smith advanced to Sunday’s championship round by upsetting top-seeded UMass-Dartmouth 2-1 in that semifinal. Brunner had 10 saves in the championship with Smith, setting the season record for most saves with 127, despite not always playing a complete game this season.

Behind O’Brien in season scoring for Bates are Maconochie, a sophomore forward with nine goals, and Crothers with five goals and four assists.

It was nice to visit with sixth-graders Tuesday in Newport and participate with them in Children’s Book Week.

And, it was fun to learn this group of well-behaved youngsters is eagerly looking forward to the basketball season, especially when I found out who the girls coach is.

Remember high school basketball player Eileen Ellis? She starred for Mount View of Thorndike back in the early ’80s.

The young ladies of Newport are fortunate to have a fine role model in this sixth-grade teacher who coaches fifth- and sixth-grade girls basketball during the month of October before moving on to the junior high program in November.