Portsmouth, n.h.
After two straight state championship runs and three in the past four years, the Raiders struggled out of the gate this fall with just three wins in their first six games. Longtime coach Deb Beach’s charges figured things out around midseason and kept up their title defense with a 1-0 double-overtime win at No. 4 Portsmouth on Sunday in the D-II quarterfinals.
Fifth-seeded Lebanon (10-4-1) won six straight games over the second half of the campaign, nearly making the D-II top four. Being forced to hit the road made no difference, thanks to Leah Mayes’ second-overtime game-winner to send the Raiders through.
“I just think they’ve improved,” Beach said on Sunday evening. “If you’d have asked me if we were going to the semifinals on Aug. 15, I would have said it was our far-out goal. As we went through the season, every time they’ve played, they’ve gotten better and better and better.
“We didn’t come in like my last two years before this, knowing we had a great chance to get to that final game. This team didn’t know that, and I don’t think they believed that until they got going into the season.”
Lebanon’s tenacity showed itself in Mayes’ game-winner, her seventh of the year, all in the second half of the campaign.
Defender Emily Hunnewell began the play leading to Mayes’ winner by intercepting a Portsmouth counterattack, dribbling the length of the field and firing a shot that was stopped by Clippers goalkeeper Kayleigh Vogel (15 saves, 10 in OT). The Portsmouth goalie got her pads on rebounds from Meredith Melendy and Mayes before the latter lifted a third-chance ricochet over the netminder and into the cage.
“You could see in (Mayes’) body language that this ball was going into the net,” Beach said. “We were frustrated. We had a lot of shots in regulation and overtime. Their goalie was phenomenal.”
Hope Brown recorded a four-save shutout for Lebanon. Beach credited Hunnewell and fellow defender Corinne Kennedy with organizing the Raiders’ back line.
Lebanon will meet No. 1 Derryfield in Thursday’s semifinals at Bill Ball Stadium in Exeter. The Cougars (14-1-0) moved on with a 2-0 win on Sunday over No. 8 Sanborn in Manchester. Derryfield swept a pair of 2-0 decisions from the Raiders three weeks apart in September before Lebanon found its second-half form.
Pelham, n.h.
Fifth-ranked Stevens (11-5-0) loses four players to graduation but will return second-leading scorer Elyse Scott and goaltender Tess Whitney next autumn for another run at the postseason.
Milford, n.h.
Lebanon protested — and the NHIAA agreed on Saturday — that officials erred in failing to whistle play dead in awarding the Spartans a penalty kick 47 seconds into Friday’s match, which Milford won, 2-1. Sunday’s contest picked up at that point, and the Spartans’ Jacob Wilder fired past Lebanon goalkeeper Davis Cole (three saves) for a 1-0 lead.
The Raiders scored twice in the final five minutes of the first half to take control. Owen Johnstone’s through ball bypassed Patrick Mason to Nate Chickering’s conversion at 36:15, and Graham Chickering potted the rebound of a 20-yard blast from Logan Falzarano at 39:32.
Lebanon, Con-Val and Pembroke finished with identical records atop D-II, whose tournament field will be confirmed today.
Hanover
Dartmouth (0-1-0 league, 0-2-0 overall) couldn’t take advantage of a 10-4 shots edge in the first period, leaving Harvard (1-0-0 league and overall) to notch the game’s first goal through Sydney Daniels at 3:50 of the second. Sophomore Tess Bracken netted the Big Green’s first goal of the season six minutes later on the rebound of a Bailee Brekke drive, but Harvard took a 2-1 lead into the break thanks to Lexie Laing’s eventual game-winner less than three minutes after that.
Val Turgeon made it 3-1 for the visitors midway through the third period, and Daniels completed a hat trick with two late goals. Robyn Chemago made 25 saves for the Big Green, which visits St. Lawrence on Friday afternoon.
New Haven, Conn.
Ng and Lyn took down Penn’s Luba Vazhenina and Marta Kowalski in the round of 16, 8-7 (5), and defeated Cornell’s Priyank Shah and Mariko Linuma, also 8-7 (5), to advance. Ng also made it to the singles semis with two wins on Sunday, while Lyn fell in her match.
Ng has a 10 a.m. date with Syracuse’s Gabriela Knuston today, then teams up with Lyn against Knuston and Valerie Salazar afterward.
Philadelphia
Broom beat Columbia’s Timothy Wang and Horneffer edged Harvard’s Brian Yeung, both in straight sets, to reach the next round of the tournament. Two other Big Green players, Diego Pedraza and Roko Glasnovic, were eliminated in the round-of-16 doubles.