GENEVA, N.Y.--First-year Stephanie Leveille (Ossining/Ossining, N.Y.) scored with less than six minutes remaining in regulation and set up the game-winner in the 114th minute to lead the William Smith College soccer team past SUNY-Oneonta, 2-1 in double overtime. The victory gives the Herons the NCAA Division III Northeast Region Championship and a berth in the national quarterfinals.
William Smith dominated the opening half-outshooting the Red Dragons 9-0-but failed to solve junior goalie Megan McCoy (Bethpage, N.Y.). McCoy finished with seven saves, including four in the second overtime period.
After the break, the Herons (14-4-1) continued to control the match, holding a 7-3 shot advantage, but it was Oneonta (20-2-0) that drew first blood. In the 65th minute, junior Elizabeth Grosser (Levittown, N.Y.) sent a cross from the left wing into the middle of the box, where senior Elizabeth McGrail (Stamford, N.Y.) drove home her 19th goal of the season.
William Smith fired off four more shots over the next 20 minutes, but still couldn't manage a goal, before Leveille equalized on the Herons' 16th shot of the afternoon. Leveille's seventh goal of the season was set up by a seemingly impossible turn and pass from sophomore Maria Paoff (East Syracuse-Minoa/East Syracuse, N.Y.).
"I heard someone behind me calling me," Paoff said. "I was going to pass it back [away from the goal] and I just turned it inside and Steph was there."
"I knew she was going to turn it," Leveille said. "I was standing at the near post just screaming, 'Maria! Maria! Maria!'"
The Red Dragons took the first two shots of overtime, but the first shot sailed wide left and the other was safely corralled by junior goalie Leah Cornwell (Wheatland Chili/Caledonia, N.Y.). Oneonta didn't get another shot off. Cornwell finished with two saves.
With two shots in the first OT, William Smith turned up the pressure in the second extra session. The Herons fired off six shots in the final frame, breaking through with the golden goal 113:41 into the match.
Leveille set up the game-winner while trying to end the game herself. She fired a shot from the top the box that was headed wide right, but sophomore Kristin Perrigo (Liverpool/Liverpool, N.Y.) was there to one-time it home and clinch William Smith's fourth Regional Championship since the NCAA began regional play in 1993 (1993, 1995, 1997). The goal was Perrigo's ninth of the season, and second game-winner in as many matches.
"I was just trying to put it far post because the keeper was taking away my angles," Leveille said. "I knew KP was there to finish it because she'd been hanging out there the last couple of trips down the field."
The Herons, in the midst of their 14th consecutive NCAA Tournament tying the record set by UC-San Diego, will face Tufts University, a 3-1 winner over Wheaton (Mass.) College, on Saturday or Sunday in the quarterfinal round. William Smith is unbeaten in its last 11 games, and has won seven in a row.
"There was never any doubt, we did not want to lose," Perrigo said. "We never had our heads down. We've been down before and we knew we could win it."
--HWS SPORTS--
