Sophomore defender Shannon Donahue picked the perfect time to score her first collegiate goal, breaking a 1-1 tie in the 78th minute to give Roberts Wesleyan a 2-1 victory over Dowling in the final game of the regular season.
Donahue took a pass from midfielder Erica Lamb, one-touched a pass to her right and sent a 35 yard shot over the Golden Lions goalkeeper and just under the crossbar.
Earlier Bella Mitrevski (Churchville) netted her 16th goal of the season in the 21st minute. After taking a pass from Courtney Hartnett outside the 18, her shot skipped under the diving Dowling goalkeeper and into the net for a 1-0 lead.
Dowling had tied the contest in the 62nd minute before Donahue put her long shot over the keepers head for the game-winner.
“It feels great,” Donahue said. “Defenders don’t usually score, especially the winning goal, so that’s nice. I think I scored once or twice in high school, so nothing crazy. And the last regular season game too.”
“I had it (the ball) and saw that I had space, so I was thinking should I go long with it, but I heard everyone saying ‘shoot-shoot’, so I ripped it and luckily it went in.”
“It wasn’t our best performance, but we knew what we had to do,” third year head coach Bobby McColl said. “The team has shown a lot of character toward the end of the season when games have been tough and we’ve been down or been tied. So proud of them for making the conference tournament for the first time. Being the second seed and hosting is a big achievement.”
In the second game of the doubleheader, junior Malcolm Shaw headed in cross from the left corner by Jake Zito with only ten seconds remaining in regulation to give the Redhawks men a 2-1 win and eliminate Dowling from the conference postseason.
Less than three minutes after Dowling opened up a 1-0 first half lead, senior Garth Brungard headed in a pass from Taiwo Aderounmu for his fourth goal of the season.
Roberts then dominated the second half with four legitimate scoring chances before Shaw netted his game-winning tenth goal of the season.
“To end up in fifth place out of 11 teams is pretty good—I’ll take that,” said head coach Scott Reber. “I think it’s (his first year as head coach) a good start; look for more of this coming in the future.”
The women finished the regular season with an 11-4-1 record and the second seed for the East Coast Conference playoffs. The men, at 8-6-2 recorded the pair of wins on the final weekend, but did not get the help they needed from other teams and were awaiting a NCCAA postseason bid.
Senior and Churchville-Chili grad Ellie Swan, Brittany Houghton, Miranda Colon (North Chili) and Heaven Palamitia were honored prior to their final regular season home game. For the men, goalkeepers Michael Scavone (credited with four saves in the contest) and Chris Matteson, Brungard, Zito and Michael McGinnis completed their collegiate careers.
