The top seeded and undefeated Mohawk Valley Hawks Women's Soccer team won a pair of games over the last couple days and found themselves as the Region 3A Champions and heading to the National Tournament that starts next week on Thursday, November 14th.
The Hawks defeated Onondaga CC on Thursday, October 31st in the semi-final game by a score of 7-0 in the pouring rain at SUNY Poly. It took a little while for the Hawks to find the net, but in the 18th minute Kaitlyn Daley scored the first and eventual game-winning goal for the Hawks. Late in the first half, a player was taken down in the box and Nikki Casab fired home a penalty kick to give the Hawks a 2-0 lead going into the half. That ignited the Hawk's offense as they would add five more goals in the next 30 minutes in the second half to finish the game with a 7-0 victory and a date with Hudson Valley Sunday afternoon for the Regional Championship. Daley would add another second half goal, Emily Berube would score two of her own, and Jenna Thompson and Skyler Jones each found the back of the net for the Hawks in the semi-final matchup.
Mohawk Valley would go on to defeat Hudson Valley in the Region 3A Championship game Sunday to once again go to the National Tournament for a chance to win another NJCAA Women's Soccer National Championship. In the 35th minute of the contest Nikki Casab would again capitalize on a penalty in the box and make the penalty kick to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead at the half. Early in the second half, Hudson Valley got on the board and tied the game at 1-1 as Brooke Clough would slide one past Hawk's goalkeeper Bobbie Lee-Hall. Unfazed by the tied score, the Hawks kept battling and pushing the pace, and Rylee Kolek would score the winning goal in the 61st minute as she finished a ball from Kaitlyn Daley. Freshman Emily Berube would ice the game for the Hawks in the 87th minute with the Hawks 3rd and final goal to make the score 3-1 with a little over two minutes remaining in the game. Bobbie Lee-Hall would stop eight of the nine shots she faced on her way to another solid outing and improving the Hawk's record to 17-0-0 on the season.
The Hawks would place four players on this year's Region 3A All-Tournament team: Rylee Kolek, Emily Berube, Nikki Casab, and Macy Vitale.
The NJCAA National Tournament will take place November 14th-November 17th at Tompkins-Cortland CC in Dryden, NY. The Hawks are one of the eight teams that qualified for the National Tournament by winning their region. The other teams in the tournament along with the Mohawk Valley Hawks are Brookhaven, Delta, Howard, Nassau, Brookdale, Rowan-Gloucester, and local team Herkimer.