CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — First-year Penny Baroni (Dennis, Mass.) and graduate student Katie Guden (Belmont, Mass.) scored first-half goals and No. 7 Babson College withstood a late push to defeat No. 15 MIT, 2-1, in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) field hockey showdown Saturday afternoon at Jack Barry Field.

With its ninth consecutive victory, the Beavers improve to 14-3 overall and take over sole possession of first place in the NEWMAC at 8-0 while the Engineers had an eight-game winning streak snapped and dropped to 12-4 overall and 7-1 in conference games.

Senior goalie Bayla Furmanek (State College, Pa.) made three saves in goal for the Beavers, all three coming in the final two minutes of the game, including one on a penalty stroke with 42 seconds remaining to secure the victory.

Sophomore Ingrid Tomovski (Bosch en Duin, Netherlands) scored and senior Faith Choe (San Diego, Calif.) registered an assist for the Engineers. Sophomore Maeve Zimmer (Rockville, Md.) made four saves in goal in the setback.

Babson produced three penalty corners in the opening six minutes of the game but could not produce any shots on goal. The Engineers answered with four straight corners in the 10th minute and two more in the 14th minute, all with the same outcome. With time winding down in the opening stanza, Babson struck first. Baroni pounced on a loose ball in the slot and ripped a back-hander past Zimmer inside the right post with just 2.2 seconds on the clock for her fifth goal of the season.

After the Beavers had a pair of unsuccessful corners to start the second quarter, the Engineers evened the score on a penalty corner of their own with 7:21 to go in the half. Choe made the insert from the left side to Tomovski at the top of the circle, and she slammed a shot from just inside the circle that beat Furmanek to her right, inside the left post for her team-leading 14th goal of the season.

Babson answered just two minutes later on another corner. Junior Caroline DiGiovanni (Harwich, Mass.) took the initial shot after the insertion, which was stopped by Zimmer, but Guden won a battle for the loose ball and flipped it into the net for her ninth of the season and a 2-1 lead with five minutes remaining in the half. The Green and White achieved two more corners before the break, but settled for a one-goal lead at the intermission.

A defensive third quarter limited the two teams to just two corners and one shot on goal, all by Babson, but to offense to show for it and Zimmer denied Baroni on the only shot attempt in the period. Zimmer made stops on also graduate student Andrea Marguerite (Hopkinton, Mass.) and Guden in the first 10 minutes of the fourth quarter as the Beavers looked for an insurance marker.

MIT would not go down quietly and make a final push in the last two minutes. Furmanek denied shots by junior Bailey McIntyre (Concord, Mass.) and senior Ashley Lederman (Villanova, Pa.) on penalty corners, and came up big going to her right to deny Tomovsky on the penalty stroke with 42 seconds left in the game to preserve the victory.

Babson finished with a 14-7 margin in total shots, including 6-4 in shots on goal, and MIT had a narrow advantage in penalty corners, 11-10.

The Beavers will play their final two regular season games at home, beginning with non-conference University of New England on Tuesday at MacDowell Field at 6 p.m. MIT wraps up its regular season next Saturday at Salve Regina at 12 p.m.

GAME NOTES
• Babson has won seven straight and 13 of the last 16 games against the Engineers and now has a 36-18 advantage over MIT in the all-time series that dates back to 1984.
• The Green and White extended their conference regular season winning streak to 67 games dating back to 2015, and their overall winning streak against NEWMAC opponents, including playoffs, to 39 games since a 3-2 overtime loss to MIT in the 2019 conference championship game.
• Babson is 9-5 since the start of last year against top-20 opponents.
• Furmanek improved her career record to 55-9, matching the program record for career victories set by her predecessor, Cassidy Riley '22, who was 55-11 from 2018-21.