PURCHASE, N.Y. – Senior Christie DeMarco (Valley Stream, N.Y./Valley Stream South) scored the match-winning goal in the 107th minute to cap a late Valiant comeback as the Manhattanville College women's soccer team picked up its first victory of the season and retained Anderson Hill Road bragging rights for the fifth straight time with a 2-1 (2OT) win over Purchase College on Friday night at GoValiants.com Field.
 
DeMarco moved into 11th place all-time at Manhattanville (1-2-0) with her sixth game-winning score, coming 6:21 into the second overtime period. After Purchase (0-3-0) booted the ball to midfield, freshman Dany Swidler (San Diego, Calif./Torrey Pines) charged forward and sent a long ball over the defense to DeMarco, who collected the pass and beat Panther netminder Briana Leon for her first goal of the season.
 
Freshman Joanna Karp (Plainview, N.Y./Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK) also scored for Manhattanville in the win, while junior Dolores Diemicke (North Massapequa, N.Y./Plainedge) shined at the other end of the field with four big saves. The ending put a good cap on what had been a mostly frustrating evening for the Valiants, who outshot the Panthers 20-11 but could not find the net for most of the night.
 
Despite controlling play from the opening kickoff, it was Purchase that got on the board first in the eighth minute. After a Valiant giveaway in the midfield, Riley Graham took a pass inside the 18-yard box and beat Diemicke to the near post to give the Panthers an unlikely 1-0 lead.
 
Manhattanville nearly tied the game in the 22nd minute, when junior Melissa Barcia (Somers, N.Y./Somers) lofted a shot from 35 yards that seemed destined to drop below the crossbar but was punched off the bar by Leon. The home team also just missed knotting the score in the 36th minute, when senior Dani Sullivan (Mahopac, N.Y./Mahopac) curled a shot just over the crossbar from 25 yards out. But despite an 11-3 edge in shots, Manhattanville went into the half still down a goal at 1-0.
 
Purchase nearly took a two-goal lead at the 61:08 mark when Leah Woods put a promising shot toward the top-left corner of the net, only to be denied by a leaping save from Diemicke. That save proved to be vital when the Valiants finally broke through in the 77th minute, with Karp providing the goal. The freshman back occupied some free space about 35 yards from goal and, after receiving a pass from Barcia with nobody in front of her, launched a shot that easily fit under the bar for her first career tally.
 
The Manhattanville defense clamped down on the Panthers after Karp's score, holding Purchase to four harmless off-target attempts. The Valiants had three shots in overtime, including two from freshman Lauren Vallarelli (Mamaroneck, N.Y./Mamaroneck) and senior Christie Freer (Southington, Conn./Southington) in the second session, before DeMarco's heroics ended the match.
 
Manhattanville will return to action on Wednesday, when the Valiants head back on the road to take on Kean University beginning at 7:30 p.m.