Athenas advance P-P in Women's Soccer

Post Game Summary

Looking at CMS and Pomona-Pitzer we expected a strong defensive showing with several bursts of high-octane speed offense and a close, down to the last minute game. While the first two certainly held true, in a shocking turn of events, CMS shut out Pomona-Pitzer 3-0 guaranteeing themselves a place in the championship game this Saturday against Cal Lutheran, who won 3-1 over 4th place Redlands. For a game that ended so lopsided, it certainly didn’t tip its hand in the first half. Both CMS and Pomona-Pitzer played good defense, pushing the ball back and forth and allowing neither team to possess the ball. However, there were several pulse-pounding moments; early in the first half Tracy Lopez, Pomona-Pitzer’s top scoring senior center forward, broke away from the defense twice; however, when matched up against CMS freshman keeper Molly Freed alone, Freed got the better of Lopez both times, cutting off her angle the first time and blocking the shot back out onto the field the second. After those breakaways, CMS switched around its defense to insure that there was always one person covering Lopez with another giving support. While Lopez ended up with over five shots on the game, after those first two plays she didn’t get any other major scoring opportunities. Senior captain Rosa Ahn also deserves a great deal of credit for the shut-out; she was constantly switching between covering Lopez and the extremely fast Pomona-Pitzer striker Allie Tao. Despite this, she consistently made plays on the ball and broke up many scoring opportunities before they even got started. Though the CMS defense certainly deserves credit, the offense also showed that it has some spark. After having several outside plays broken up, a cross in the middle led to the multi-talented Kerry Moller (listed as an outside mid, outside forward, and outside defender) striking the ball into the net late in the first half. By scoring first, CMS forced Pomona-Pitzer to break away from their defensive MO, opening up cracks in Pomona-Pitzer’s hybrid 4-5-1/4-4-2 formation. Early in the second half, CMS struck again, this time with a beautiful corner kick from Madi Shove. Streaking just over the fingertips of Pomona-Pitzer keeper Emma Wolfarth, Senior Lizzie Van Buskirk jumped on the ball, pounding it into the back of the net and giving CMS a commanding 2-0 lead. Finally, with about 30 minutes left to play, Madi Shove broke down the sideline. After beating a defender and getting a step, keeper Emma Wolfarth was forced to come out of the goal and nearly made a beautiful sliding tackle. However, somehow Shove was able to retain the ball and fired off an incredible left-footed shot that flew between two defenders on its way to the back of the empty net. This incredible personal effort by Shove shows why she not only has scored a goal in every game this season against Pomona-Pitzer, but also display why she’s CMS’s leading scorer, with 8 goals on the season.

While CMS has to be absolutely thrilled with this win, they can’t let themselves get carried away; this weekend they play a very tough Cal Lutheran team that has beaten them twice, led by SCIAC top scorer Taylor Will, who added another two goals tonight against Redlands. That game will be this Saturday at 7PM at Cal Lutheran

Pre Game Coverage

With any luck, this year’s game will be as good as the last time these two teams met in the postseason. After 2 halves of regulation and two overtime periods, it went into penalty kicks, with CMS winning in the 18th round. This year’s matchup has the potential to be just as good; CMS and Pomona-Pitzer were second and third respectively in SCIAC play this year, with both having records of 7-4-1. Because of their first meeting, where CMS jumped out to a two goal lead within the first 15 minutes and won 3-1, CMS gained home field advantage. However, this Pomona-Pitzer team has grown quite a lot since that first meeting; four weeks ago they tied with CMS after 2 overtimes and ended the season with a close 1-0 loss to Cal Lutheran, the 20-1 first place team (with a whopping +67 goal differential on the season). Playing a 4-5-1, Pomona-Pitzer has played excellent defense all year, never allowing more than 3 goals and posting 7 shutouts.

Talking about a team that’s growing, CMS has more freshmen (10) on their team than juniors and seniors combined (4 and 5 respectively). And after tying their first two games and then getting walloped by Cal Lutheran 4-0 at home, they have had a + 13 goal differential since, losing twice to Redlands by one and two goals and losing again to Cal Lutheran by one. Their two keepers have posted a 71 save percentage, allowing more than 3 or more goals only three times, with one of those being a blowout 7-3 win over Whittier. One player to watch especially is Madi Shove. CMS’s leading scorer, she has one goal in each of CMS’s past two games against Pomona-Pitzer, with the second one being an equalizer in the second half to force overtime.

The level of talent in this game, combined with the local rivalry, should make it an excellent game, with the winner going on to play in the finals against either 1st seeded Cal Lutheren or 4th seeded Redlands.

Live Broadcast

The live audio and video coverage will begin at 6:50 PM as play starts at 7 PM. You can catch all of the live action on this page! Today's broadcast will be brought to you by Tristan Fitch (HMC '15).

You can see the video on the embedded player below! or this link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cms-athletics

If you have any suggestions, comments, or questions about Sports Broadcasting at the Claremont Colleges, please email Broadcasting@ClaremontSportsConnection.com