OXFORD, Ohio – For years, Longwood field hockey has been pounding on the ceiling trying to break through to the top tier of the Mid-American Conference.
 
After taking MAC champion Miami to the wire in Saturday's title game, the Lancers proved they belong.
 
In their first-ever MAC Championship game appearance, No. 3 seed Longwood (10-7) led as late as the 49th minute before top-seeded and four-time reigning MAC champion Miami (11-10) mounted a fourth-quarter rally to overcome the Lancers 2-1 on a game-tying goal from Lexie Nugent and a game-winner from Paula Pena.
 
Nugent's equalizer at the 48:18 mark erased a one-goal lead Longwood built just 1:19 after the opening push when senior Jamie Wright finished off a penalty corner to push the Lancers out to a 1-0 lead. Longwood's vaunted defense, ranked No. 2 in the MAC in goal against average entering the title matchup, protected that lead well into the second half, but a high-pressure push from the RedHawks eventually broke through and lifted them to their fifth consecutive MAC title.
 
"Although we are very disappointed with the outcome of today, after that settles we can recognize how well we've done and the progress we've made as a team and a program over the past decade," said Longwood head coach Iain Byers, whose title-game appearance came after he led the Lancers to their fourth MAC semifinal in eight years in the conference.
 
"Hopefully this is just the first of many championship opportunities we will create for ourselves."
 
Longwood reached the MAC Championship game against the regular-season champion RedHawks after pulling off a 1-0 upset of No. 2 seed Kent State in Friday's semifinals. That win snapped a streak of five consecutive MAC Championship games featuring Kent State and Miami and made Longwood only the fourth program to play for a MAC title since joining the conference in 2014. Those four programs – Kent State, Longwood, Miami and Ohio – made up the entire MAC Championship field.
 
However, Miami's championship-game experience showed itself late in the form of Nugent and Pena's goals, as well as a revitalized defensive effort that held the Lancers to just one shot – a Rio Weber strike off a penalty corner that was blocked by a Golden Flashes defender – after Nugent's equalizer.
 
Meanwhile, Miami, which generated just three shots through the first three quarters, outshot Longwood 5-1 in that fourth quarter and got the first of their goals on a putback from Nugent that followed a shot that Longwood goalkeeper Madison Nuckols saved. That equalizer set the stage for Pena's late-game heroics, which saw her score the go-ahead strike with less than four minutes in the match after deflecting a high shot over Nuckols' head.
 
Longwood was also hampered by three critical penalties in the second half, two of which were 10-minute yellow cards. The first of those came midway through the third quarter against Isis Vrolijks, which put Longwood a woman down until the fourth quarter. The second came against Zoe Tierney early in the fourth quarter, and another followed to Wright with just over 10 minutes to play.
 
Less than two minutes after Tierney's card, Nugent tied the game, and Pena followed with another woman-up goal seven minutes after Wright was sent away.
 
Despite the title-game defeat, the Lancers hung with Miami in a fashion similar to that which won them 10 games this season, with a crucial goal coming on penalty corner and defensive performance that blanked Miami's No. 2 MAC scoring offense for more than three quarters.

"Coming into the tournament, we focused on playing our style of hockey, not adjusting based off of our opponents," said graduate student Cammy Toddy, who punctuated a five-year career in which she started 59 games.

"The game did not go our way, but we competed and showed that we deserved to play today. We worked through adversity and navigated challenges throughout the game. I'm proud of this group and what we've been able to accomplish. I am grateful to have been a part of this program for the past five seasons and to have seen the growth of our team. Making the championship game was a tremendous achievement for Longwood field hockey. We were the 94th team in program history and the first to make it to the MAC Championship."

 
#HorsePower