The Misericordia University women's soccer team's magical 2012 postseason run came to an end with a 3-0 loss to defending national champion Messiah College on Friday night in the NCAA Division III National Semifinals at Blossom Stadium in San Antonio, TX.
 
The loss, just MU's third of the season, was the second of the year to Messiah, as the Cougars fell to the Falcons 2-0 on September 22 in Grantham, PA.
 
After a scoreless first half, the Falcons netted a pair of goals early in the second half to break open the game and advance to their seventh national championship match in the past eight years.
 
“We didn't quite get the result we were looking for tonight,” said MU head coach Mark Stauffer. “Messiah's a good side and they played extremely well. However, it means so much to have made it this far. I think just the leadership from our core group of upperclassmen that bought in to things made this group believe that we could accomplish what we accomplished, and these girls have no reason to be ashamed any many reasons to be proud.”
 
Messiah had the first opportunity of the match, earning their first corner just over two minutes, and after a little scare, the Cougars managed to clear it away.
 
After Messiah earned a second corner, the Cougars made a strong build lasting nearly three minutes, but Erin McGreal's shot sailed wide left of the goal.
 
Just a minute later, Messiah threatened again off a corner kick, but Bridget Fortier came up with a timely goal-line clear in the 14^th minute after Ciccosanti came out to challenge a defender.
 
Messiah's best look of the first half came at the 15 minute mark, when Anne Trapp blasted a shot off the crossbar, but MU managed to clear the ball and Maureen Ciccosanti came up with a pair of saves to send the Cougars into halftime tied 0-0 with the Falcons.
 
“I thought that we solved some things defensively in the first half,” said Stauffer. “We kept them in front of us pretty well, but we didn't keep the ball when we got it and that took us out of what we do. We became so focused on defending that we started just driving balls, and in doing so we put ourselves on defense for the majority of the half.”
 
After making a strong push in the first few minutes of the second half and stopping the Falcons on their first few chances, the Falcons received back-to back goals from Rachel Scheibeler and Nikki Elsaesser in the 54^th and 56^th minutes to take a 2-0 lead.
 
“I thought that the first goal was a little bit unfortunate,” said Stauffer. “I thought that Maureen (Ciccosanti) had a good read on it, but it just deflected a bit off of one of our defenders and took a different angle. To Messiah's credit, those things happen when you are under the type of pressure that they applied.”
 
Liz Phillips added a goal in the 83^rd minute to close the scoring at 3-0.
 
Ciccosanti finished the match with eight saves in goal.
 
With the loss, the Cougars bid farewell to five seniors: Sam Helmstetter, Laura Roney, Nikki Hensel, Fortier and Caitlin Sweeney, who have helped MU to a combined 54-27-6 record over the past four years.
 
More importantly, the seniors have helped to lay a foundation for the future success of the MU women's soccer program and Cougar athletics as a whole.
 
“We've had this dream forever,” said Stauffer. “We also knew that it would take years of hard work and that everything would have to fall into place. This group of seniors started to believe as sophomores when they began to experience some success.  You certainly can't replace what they've meant to this program both on and off the field, but I think that just the experience of being here today is going to help us make another run in the future, hopefully even next year. You can't build tradition and history until the first group has done it, and we were just fortunate to be the first group. I don't think we'll be the last group from Misericordia to do make a run like this.”
 
For the 29 ladies that comprise the Misericordia University women's soccer team, they will go down in Cougar history as that first team. And that indeed is a great reason to be proud.