BOX
SCORE
BABSON PARK, Mass. -- Sophomore Jimmy Stento (Needham,
Mass.) continued his brilliant late-season play by scoring
the game-winning goal in the 77th minute as the top-seeded Babson
College Beavers defeated second-seeded archrival Wheaton College,
2-1, in the championship game of the 2009 New England Women's and
Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Men's Soccer Tournament at
Babson's Hartwell-Rogers Field on Sunday afternoon. It marked the
second consecutive conference title and the fourth in the last
eight years for the Beavers (15-5-1), who entered the weekend
ranked eighth in New England by the NCAA. Babson also secured an
automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament with the win -
the 21st berth in team history.
Wheaton, which entered the game ranked sixth in the region by
the NCAA and 18th in the country by the NSCAA, now
sports an 18-4-1 record and will await a possible at-large berth to
the NCAA Tournament when the field is announced on Monday morning.
After seeing limited minutes for most of the year due to an
early-season illness, Stento has been magnificent down the stretch
for the Beavers, coming off the bench to factor in on six of the
team's last eight goals. His third goal of the season came less
than a minute after checking in midway through the second half on
Sunday, as he tucked a shot inside the right post off a long cross
from senior Dan Fogarty (Brookline, N.H.) to snap
a 1-1 tie at 76:08.
Wheaton came up empty on its final three scoring chances, as
junior captain Yuri Moreira's (Marlboro, Mass.) header at the
81-minute mark rolled just wide of the right post, junior Josh
Solomon's (Acton, Mass.) header in the 86th minute was successfully
corralled by Babson sophomore keeper Peter Crowley
(Lexington, Mass.), and junior Kyle Sye's (Acton, Mass.)
shot from the left corner of the box was blocked and cleared with
35 seconds remaining.
The Lyons grabbed a 1-0 lead early in the second half, as
first-year Howard Manly (Ayer, Mass.) came out of a scramble in
front following a Wheaton corner kick and slid a shot past Crowley
for his first goal of the season at 52:14. That lead would last
until the 66-minute mark, when Babson sophomore Dan Hixon
(Foxboro, Mass.) headed a corner kick from Fogarty into
the upper right corner for his first of the year to knot the
contest at 1-1. Hixon was later replaced in the 76th minute by
Stento, who promptly netted the game-winner less than a minute
later.
Crowley finished with five saves in another strong effort in net
for Babson, while junior captain Cole Davidson (Needham, Mass.)
made four stops in defeat for the Lyons, including a pair of
spectacular stops on would-be goals by Beavers' sophomore
Billy Nickerson (Middleton, Mass.) - one in the
eighth minute and another in the 66th. Manly also came up with a
huge team save for Wheaton, as he blocked a wide open look by
first-year Ayo Iwuagwu (Lagos, Nigeria) on the
goal line with just over a minute left in the scoreless first
half.
