SPRINGFIELD, Mass. â€" It’s not too often that a scoreless game provides one thrill after another, but that was the case Wednesday night (Oct. 18) when Amherst College finally prevailed over Western New England College 1-0 in a non-league field hockey game decided on penalty strokes.

The teams battled to a scoreless deadlock after 100 minutes that included two 15-minute overtime periods before the Lady Jeffs took a 1-0 edge in the penalty stroke competition.

Amherst sophomore goalie Jane Mostue (Lincoln, MA) made only one save in the game, but stopped all five penalty stroke attempts by the Golden Bears.

Western New England College junior Emilie Donka (White River Junction, VT) was sensational as well making 14 saves in one of the best games of her career. She stopped the first two Amherst penalty shots before junior Lauren Benson (Hamilton, NJ) fired a shot that hit Donka’s glove pad and bounced over her shoulder into the net.

The Golden Bears had a chance to tie on their third penalty shot, but junior Cori Eggert (Denville, NJ) had her penalty stroke hit near the bottom of the right pole and the officials (after a short discussion) ruled the ball didn’t cross the goal line.

Amherst held a 25-9 advantage in shots and dominated play for most of regulation, but Donka kept the Lady Jeffs off the board by stopping five shots in the opening half and three in the second stanza.

In the first overtime period, Mostue came through with a big save on a hard slap shot by senior Allison Jameson (Brattleboro, VT) at the 80:30 mark. A short time later Jameson weaved her way in towards the goal but her shot just missed to the left.

Both teams had an opportunity to score in the second overtime period. Eggert missed to the right from just inside the arc with 2:01 left and Benson missed to the right off a penalty corner shot with 40 seconds remaining.

Amherst improves its record to 5-6 while Western New England College is now 9-7.