The Franklin Pierce women's soccer team will have to get through one of the best sides in the nation if it is going to win a Northeast-10 Conference championship today. Goalkeeper Jocelyn Leon said the Ravens will be ready.
"Practice has been really focused" this past week, the sophomore goalie from Lenox said. "Everyone knows what their job is. We practice like it's a game. We go hard all the time."
The Ravens are ranked 19th in the latest NSCAA Division II poll and are 16-3-1. They'll travel to Albany today to face No. 2 College of Saint Rose, perfect at 20-0-0.
It's a rematch of last year's title game that Saint Rose won on penalty kicks. It's also a rematch of a game played on Oct. 10, when Franklin Pierce lost 2-0. In that game, Ravens' goalkeeper Casey Edwards gave up two goals and made five saves.
"It wasn't good for us," said Leon, when recalling that first game this year. "We went to Albany, we weren't there to play. We fell apart. We couldn't pass out of the back."
Leon has played in the majority of her team's games, 13 of them. She has a 0.59 goals-against average, a 11-1 record and seven shutouts.
She said her coaching staff broke down every second of tape against Saint Rose and showed the Ravens what they were doing incorrectly.
The Ravens rolled into the NE-10 tournament and got some revenge on UMass-Lowell in the semifinals, beating the River Hawks 2-1 as Leon had three
"[Thursday] night was a big game. We lost to UMass-Lowell and pretty badly," recalled Leon. "[Head coach Jeff Bailey] said ‘You're going to go there, have fun and work hard -- then there should be no problem with the game."
Bailey is in his 14th year as Franklin Pierce's head coach. Leon said he and goalies coach Katrina Spencer have been instrumental in improving her game.
Leon said that being a taller player, she should have been a goalie in high school. She is athletic and that helped at Lenox, but not at the next level.
"It was technique," she said, when asked about what she's improved on the most. "I never had a problem talking, I never had a problem being aggressive."
Earlier in the year, Franklin Pierce beat conference rival Stonehill, which meant that Leon got the better of a high school rival, Skyhawks goalie Sarah Hickey of Lee.
"I never had a win against her personally," Leon recalled of the years Lee beat Lenox in girls' soccer and basketball. "It was years of losing to Lee. I have so much respect for her. I love playing against her."
Leon is a biology major and said she wants to be a coroner.
Now, it's off on a bus to Albany and a ride through the Berkshires.
"I'll see the signs to Lee-Pittsfield-Lenox and say ‘That's my home town,' " Leon said. "It's really great."
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This special soccer edition is all about playoff soccer. There were two conference championship games Saturday afternoon.
One involved a former Lenox teammate of Leon, junior defender Brittany Staszowski at Simmons College.
Staszowski and her teammates were scheduled to play Emmanuel College for the Great Northeast Athletic Conference championship.
Emmanuel entered the game 14-5-1 while Simmons was 11-5-3. Staszowski, a nursing major, has been a solid player on the back line as Simmons has only give up 1.29 goals a game, a half-goal better than Emmanuel's 1.74.
Simmons is 6-1-2 in its last nine games and beat St. Joseph's of Maine 1-0 in the GNAC semifinals.
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Ben Nasman, of Lenox, has been named a second-team all-star in men's soccer by The Commonwealth Coast Conference.
Nasman, a junior midfielder, is second on the Wentworth Institute of Technology scoring list with five goals and two assists. He has three game-winning goals.
Wentworth played Western New England on Saturday afternoon in the TCCC championship game. WNEC entered play as the top seed with a 14-5-3 record, while Wentworth was the third seed at 12-7, and was sporting a four-game winning streak.
Also seeing extensive action for Wentworth is Ben Nasman's brother Jeremy and Dave Lagarce -- both of Lenox.
Jeremy Nasman is a freshman midfielder and has played in all 19 games, started 13 and has an assist. Lagarce is a junior midfielder and has registered four assists in 19 starts.
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We would be remiss if we did not take the opportunity to congratulate MCLA women's soccer player Jess Tietgens, of Stamford, Vt., for being named to the All-MASCAC women's soccer first team.
The junior forward leads the conference with 25 goals and also has four assists. She has also scored six game-winning goals.
Tietgens led the Trailblazers into Saturday night's title game against Westfield State.
Brianna Bresett, of Adams and Hoosac Valley, has two assists for MCLA while former Wahconah player Kasie Harrington, of Dalton, has a goal.
The Trailblazers were 14-4 going into Saturday, which is why head coach Deb Raber was named the MASCAC coach of the year.
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