Eagles blank Wildcats, earn NAC final berth

BANGOR – The Husson College Eagles earned the right Tuesday to defend their North Atlantic Conference women’s soccer championship.

Husson received early first-half goals 5:18 apart from junior midfielder Laurie Melen and freshman midfielder Amy Sanz and went on to post a thorough 3-0 triumph over Bay Path College (Mass.) in their NAC semifinal at Boucher Field.

Second seed Husson, 13-6-1 overall, will now travel to face top seed University of Maine-Farmington, 14-4-1, in Saturday’s championship game. It will be a rematch of last year’s final won by Husson 1-0.

Freshman striker Megan LaJoie added a second-half goal.

Sixth seed Bay Path, which had just 12 players, finished 8-9-2.

Melen, who was a constant threat throughout, scored off a long, diagonal pass from Katie Nickerson 13:53 into the game.

Melen, left unmarked near the end line on the right side of the penalty area, had her low cross deflect into the near side corner off Bath Path defender Michelle Deyorio and the hands of goalie Samantha Gunseth.

“There was a lot of space over there the whole game, so I just looked over and passed to [Melen], she was where she was supposed to be and she put it in,” said Nickerson.

Melen said Bay Path “tended to shift to the other side and then make a slow shift back. So we made a quick transition and utilized that space.”

“[Nickerson] made a perfect pass and I basically tried to cross it and got lucky,” added Melen.

Gunseth said there was confusion in the box.

“The ball was coming in and everybody just wanted a piece of it to get it out and it hit [Deyorio’s] foot and tipped in just enough to throw me off. I got my hand on it, but it wasn’t quite enough with the curve the way it was going. It was unlucky,” said Gunseth.

Sanz converted a Clement corner kick with a low 14-yard shot through a crowded goalmouth that beat Gunseth to the goalie’s right.

“I had two or three touches, I took my time and the left corner was open,” said Sanz.

Gunseth said she didn’t see the shot “until the last second and it was a foot out of my reach.”

LaJoie scored with a point-blank header after Sanz and Clement had headed it toward the goal.

Husson thoroughly dominated play, putting constant pressure on Bay Path’s defense.

Bay Path tried to stay compact and crowd the penalty area with numbers but the early goals did the Wildcats in.

Husson had 34 shots at goal to Bay Path’s six.

“We were efficient,” said Husson coach Keith Bosley. “We’ve had to practice against low-pressure defenses. We’ve learned to be patient and change the point of attack and create our opportunities off of that.”

“We gave up two bad goals and you can’t afford to give up bad goals against a team like Husson and expect to win,” said Bay Path coach Gary Karibian.

Tatyana Wolterbeek made one save, that coming with 35 seconds left in regulation, while Gunseth finished with 16 stops.