Photo Gallery
Montclair, NJ – Sophomore forward
Maura Johnston (Montville, NJ, Montville) scored the game's long goal with 16:28 remaining as top-ranked and top-seeded Montclair State captured its second straight New Jersey Athletic Conference championship with a 1-0 victory over second-seeded and ninth-ranked The College of New Jersey on Saturday afternoon.
Sophomore goalkeeper
Rebecca Brattole (Clark, NJ, Arthur L. Johnson) came up with a huge performance stopping seven shots as the Red Hawks (20-1) won its second league crown overall and also claimed the NJAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Field Hockey Championship. It will be the third straight NCAA appearance for MSU and fifth overall including last year when Montclair reached the national championship game.
Selections and pairings for the NCAA Tournament will be announced on Sunday, November 10 by 10:00 pm on
NCAA.com.
Junior goalkeeper Amanda Krause (Richboro, PA / Council Rock North) had a pair of saves for the Lions (16-4), who will now wait to see if it is selected for an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. The Lions were ranked second behind Montclair State in the latest regional rankings.
It was the second time in three years that the two teams met in the NJAC title game. TCNJ won the inaugural conference championship contest in 2011 with a 2-0 win in Ewing.
TCNJ, which was seeking its 25th conference crown outshot Montclair State 10-3 in the game however it was the Red Hawks getting the lone score of the game from Johnston, who helped set up the sequence of events that led to the goal.
Brattole came up with a save against Victoria Martin (Clark, NJ / Arthur L. Johnson) at 52:13 of the second half. The Red Hawks cleared the ball out of the circle and moved up the field when senior
Brooke Hullings (Delran, NJ, Delran) sent a ball down inside the circle at the other end. Johnston, racing step-for-step with a defender for the loose ball, forced a foul inside the circle giving Montclair State a penalty corner.
Off the corner insert,
Jennifer Tafro (Little Falls, NJ, Passaic Valley) fed the ball to
Stephanie Lewis (Garwood, NJ, Arthur L. Johnson), who then gave the ball back to Tafro in the middle. Tafro drove in before flipping a pass to Johnston down low. Johnston then whirled and fired a shot inside the right post for her 10th goal of the year and more importantly a 1-0 Montclair State lead.
Montclair would get a chance to add to the lead 10 minutes later however Krause denied Tafro with 6:29 left.
TCNJ would get a pair of opportunities within the final three minutes. Off a penalty corner, Lindsey Hatch (Sewell, NJ / Washington Township) tried to lift a ball from the top left side over Brattole, who for the second time in the game made a glove stop knocking the ball out of the air. Jordan Calderone (Collingswood, NJ / Collingswood) got the last chance with 1:03 remaining but again Brattole was there for the stop.
Montclair State cleared the ball out and ran out the final 67 seconds.
The Lions outshot MSU 7-0 in the first half. Danielle Adreula (New Egypt, NJ / New Egypt) was stopped by Brattole 10 minutes in and Hatch's first attempt on the high-arching shot was knocked away at the 11:21 mark. Erin Healy (Spring Lake Heights, NJ / Manasquan) had a shot on the goal denied at 26:45 and a second shot by Hatch with 2:35 remaining was smothered by Brattole as the game went scoreless into halftime.
The victory by Montclair State was its second over the Lions this year and third straight overall as MSU, which won the first meeting 2-1 at Sprague Field on October 11, posted its first shutout against the Lions since a 2-0 victory in 1980.
