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BY VICTOR BRADY

In print | Published November 10, 2011

On a frigid Baltimore Saturday evening, the offense of the Swarthmore Garnet women’s soccer team could never quite heat up, as they fell to Gettysburg 1-0 in the Centennial Conference semifinals.

Entering the tournament with five consecutive victories as the number three seed in the Conference after finishing the year at 12-5, 7-3 against Centennial opponents, the Garnet outshot the second-seeded Bullets 11-7 over the course of the match. But a first-half goal from Gettysburg’s Molly Phillips on a corner kick proved the difference as the Bullets defeated the Garnet by one goal for the second time this season.

After a slow first half in which the Garnet struggled to maintain extended possession, the team began to dictate play midway through the second half, constantly switching fields and working towards the corners.

“The first half wasn’t great. The soccer wasn’t very good for both sides,” head coach Todd Anckaitis said. “In the first half of tournament games, you expect it to be helter-skelter because everyone is excited. But we gave the ball away a lot and if not for that corner-kick goal, we would have been in good shape. But we were in a hole at the half.”

In the final 15 minutes of play, Swarthmore had three solid chances to equalize, but a Haley Most ’13 cross and Aly Passanante ’14 corner were sent away by the organized Bullets defense and a Megan Brock ’14 pass just eluded Garnet’s leading scorer Emma Sindelar ’15 at the top of the 18-yard box in the 86th minute as Gettysburg held on for the win.

“I thought when we put three in the back in the final 15, we became more dominant with that sense of urgency,” Anckaitis added. The game plan going in was to look to change fields through possession and go endline. In the second half, we started to possess more and that gave us success. ”

Alexa Ross ’13 felt that the team’s formation became spaced out during their match. “ I think that it is usually hard for us to keep a solid structure for 90 minutes and that’s when we lose the ball and end up chasing, so I think that is the biggest thing that we want to improve on coming out of Saturday.”

The top seed in the Centennial Conference, Johns Hopkins, undefeated on the season and ranked No. 4 in Division III, defeated Gettysburg on Sunday with a final score of 2-0 to capture their seventh consecutive Centennial Conference title.

On the back of their regular season success, the Garnet earned a bid to the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) South regional tournament as the number three seed.

Swarthmore began ECAC play on Wednesday hosting Albright. Prior to last year’s absence from the tournament, the Garnet had won three consecutive ECAC South championships without surrendering a single goal in any of their nine matches.

Anckaitis was confident that the team wouldn’t enter the tournament with any sense of complacency. “It’s been two years since we’ve been to the ECAC, so our previous results don’t impact this team at all. We have a lot of confidence because we know the level at which we are capable of playing.”

Added Brock, “We are excited about the opportunity to keep playing. At this point, we have to win to keep playing…it’s an opportunity that not a lot of teams get and we want our season to continue.” Entering Wednesday, the Garnet had not lost consecutive matches since the opening weekend of the season. But it was the visiting Lions jumped on the scoreboard first 17 minutes into the match as Erin Hand found a loose ball in the box.

Later in the period, Emily Coleman ’12 was taken down in the penalty area but with no whistle as Albright led 1-0 at the half despite Swarthmore outshooting the visitors 13-2 through the opening 45.

The second half saw similar domination from the Garnet but the Lions defense never broke. Even with a 7-2 shots advantage in the second half, Swarthmore couldn’t find the equalizer as the Lions finished off the 1-0 upset.

Swarthmore concludes the season 12-7.

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