The RPI women’s soccer team had an amazing weekend as they hosted the NYS Tournament Championship at Harkness Field. Coming into the tournament, RPI was top seed and already guaranteed a berth in the finals. They found themselves in rare form, completely steam-rolling their opposition in both semi-finals and finals. The Red Hawks walked away as the winners with Katie Fredlund, a sophomore defenseman, earning MVP honors.
The tournament started for the Red Hawks with an easy morning game against the fourth-seeded Fredonia Blue Devils. Overall, RPI out shot the Blue Devils 33-4, forcing 12 saves on the Fredonia goalies, Brianna Falvey and Kristin Engel, throughout the game. In the first half, Susan Gonyea made the first goal at 39:09 on a beautiful pass by Laura Feeney, while the goalie was out of the goal. Although the Red Hawks made several more attempts on the goal for the first half, none of them proved to be successful.
In the second half, the Red Hawks played even more aggressively. Ann Larsen and Gonyea each added unassisted goals to the RPI tally at 8:08 and 13:11, respectively. Anne Drames closed out the game with an unassisted goal at 27:41 that went right through the goalie’s hands.
Having easily outplayed the Blue Devils, the Red Hawks then had to face the RIT Tigers on Sunday. Once again, the Red Hawks were at the top of their game.
The game began fairly well matched, with the Red Hawks making five attempts on the goal to the Tiger’s seven. About 20 minutes into the game, however, the story changed as the Tigers no longer finished out their plays, while the Red Hawks absolutely dominated the play.
Drames added an assist to Margaret Tomeo’s 11:55 goal as the Red Hawks opened up the scoring with great ball handling skills to beat the goalie. Roughly eight minutes later the Tigers answered with a goal dribbled in by Nicole Paga. That was to be the end of the RIT scoring for the night. Larsen added a final goal for the first half on an assist by Gonyea on a great play that slipped by the RIT goalie at 33:54.
In the second half, the RIT cannons were almost completely silent, making only one attempted shot on the goal. The RPI team, however, made 14 shots on the goal, forcing five saves and three goals for the game. Three minutes into the half, Fredlund made an amazing shot on the goal, shooting to the far side of the goalie, bouncing the goal off the bar and into the goal. At 10:47 Larsen made a shot that rolled through the goalie’s fingers, adding another goal to the RPI tally. The final goal was made by Fredlund at 33:26 as the ball bounced over the goalie’s head and into the goal.
The weekend puts the Red Hawks at 12-4-1 for the season. The UCAA tournament victory gives RPI a bid in the ECAC tournament. The Red Hawks are the fifth seed in the Northeast Championships, and will begin their tournament play on Wednesday at SUNY Geneseo. The winner of that game will go on to play the top seed Rochester in the semi-finals Saturday at 11 am. The finals are at noon on Sunday at Rochester.
