PURCHASE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville College women's soccer team, now locked in to the No. 4 seed at the Skyline Conference Tournament – which begins this Saturday, Nov. 2 – dropped its regular-season finale to the conference's top overall seed Farmingdale State College by a score of 4-0 on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 30, at GoValiants.com Field.
The Valiants (9-9, 7-3 Skyline) finish the season with a tough loss at the hands of the top-seeded Rams (12-5, 9-0-1 Skyline) as they prepare for the tournament this weekend. Manhattanville will host fifth-seeded St. Joseph's College-Long Island at 12:00 p.m. in the first round of the Skyline Tournament on Saturday.
Today, however, Manhattanville kept up with Farmingdale in the early part of the first half. Sophomore keeper
Alexa Pyatsky (Garden City, N.Y./Garden City) made a couple saves in the eighth and 11th minutes – she finished with seven on the day. Additionally, junior defender
Eileen Fiore (Poughkeepsie, N.Y./Spackenkill) made a huge defensive save of her own in the 13th as a diving Pyatsky was unable to make the stop to the left, but Fiore backed up her keeper and used her head to send the ball away and keep it scoreless.
The Rams did score twice in the first half off the foot of Brittney Starzee in the 20th and 24th minutes and took the 2-0 lead into the break. Several minutes before the half, however, senior forward
Samira Davis (Stockholm, Sweden/Kungsholmens Gymnasium) nearly split the deficit as a cross from sophomore forward
Ashley Hayes (Springfield, Ore./Thurston) set Davis up for a prime scoring attempt right in front. The Rams keeper Daniella Ford made the stop to keep it at 2-0 though. Farmingdale scored twice more in the second to take the 4-0 win.
As mentioned, the Valiants return to action this Saturday afternoon when the St. Joe's Golden Eagles come to Purchase for a 12:00 p.m. kickoff. Manhattanville already defeated St. Joe's 5-1 earlier this season, also at home, by a score of 5-1 on Senior Night on Tuesday, Oct. 22. Junior forward
Ashley Pacheco (Throggs Neck, N.Y./Pelham Prep) – the team's scoring leader – picked up a pair of goals and an assist, while Hayes and sophomore midfielder
Amaya Gonzalez (Buena Park, Calif./Western) each collected a goal and an assist in the victorious effort. Overall, Manhattanville leads the Golden Eagles 11-3-1 in the all-time series, with this season's earlier win being the first meeting between the two since November of 2006.
Overall, this will be the first postseason conference tournament berth for the Crimson and White since the 2010 season when they won the MAC Freedom title and advanced the NCAA Division III Women's Soccer Championship tournament.
