"Our season will not be defined by one loss, we've achieved too much." - Lancaster Bible College Women's Soccer Head Coach Ken Craul

The Lancaster Bible College women's soccer team hosted the NEAC Final on Sunday, looking to win the school's first NEAC Championship and advance to the NCAA Division III National Championships for the first time in school history.

After 110 minutes of tough, hard-fought soccer, the Chargers and second-seeded Penn St. Abington headed to penalty kicks, tied 2-2. Just six days after the LBC men's soccer team felt the thrill of victory on penalty kicks with their win over Philadelphia Biblical, the women's team felt the agony of defeat as they lost to Penn St. Abington, 4-2 on penalty kicks.

Prior to all of the excitement of the second half, overtime and penalty shootout, the first half was dominated by play in the midfield and the teams not getting many scoring chances. Abington held a 3-2 edge in shots in the first half, while the Chargers led 5-0 in corner kicks.

"We didn't really have a plan coming into the game, we just knew we needed to have a good work rate and needed to match LBC's intensity," Nittany Lions' Head Coach David Castellanos. "We wanted to keep it 0-0 for as long as we could, but it's difficult to do with all of LBC's weapons."

It stayed 0-0 through halftime, but just 1:30 into the second half, Abington's Alyssa Kaye redirected Brittany Palmer's corner kick into the goal for the game's first goal. The Chargers immediately took the game over and began to have a steady flow of scoring chances though and put the Abington defense on its heels.

LBC's hard work finally paid off at 63:40 when Monica Horning blasted home Ally Brown's corner kick after it had bounced through the box. 3:57 later, the Chargers took the lead when Whitney Heise collected goalkeeper Emily Lloyd's punt and chipped it over Abington goalkeeper Gabrielle Benedict who was charging out from the cage.

"I was confident we would score at some point in the second half," Craul said. "I thought after our second goal we would hold them, because their first goal had come on a set piece and we hadn't given up too many chances otherwise."

Abington, however did exactly to LBC what had been done to them earlier and put the Chargers' defense on their heels immediately after LBC's second goal. The result was the tying goal, 1:18 after Heise made it 2-1. The Nittany Lions' Brittany Middleton collected a loose ball in the Chargers' box and drilled the ball into the lower right corner to knot the score.

"We aren't typically that disorganized in our end and they had a girl in a great spot and she made us pay," Craul said.

The Chargers appeared to take a 3-2 lead a few minutes later, but the goal was called back due to LBC being offside. In the final 15 minutes of the second half, the teams had few chances, though LBC controlled much of the play.

As the first overtime started, both teams appeared to be tired and spent much of time working the ball in the midfield. Abington's best scoring chance, probably of the day, came with 1:25 remaining in the first overtime. Palmer collected the ball in the box and her shot went through Lloyd's legs, but was slowed down. As the ball trickled toward the goal line, Chargers' defender Jenna Godwin sprinted over and kept it out of the cage and giving Abington a corner kick.

Abington did nothing with the corner and LBC could not mount any offense before the first overtime ended. The Chargers had two shots on goal in the second overtime, including a great chance by Heise and a decent one by Kristina Clairmont, but could not convert because of two big saves by Benedict.

The second overtime ended and for the second straight year, the NEAC Women's Soccer Final would be decided by penalty kicks.

First shooters, Middleton for Abington and Clairmont for LBC scored, as did the second shooters, Samantha Whalen and LBC's Monica Horning. Abington's third shooter, Brianna Heck missed wide opening the door for LBC. Abington goalkeeper Benedict shut the door quickly though.

She read LBC's third shooter, Karyn Harkness, and made the save, keeping the shootout score at 2-2. Kaye, Abington's fourth shooter, converted into the bottom left-hand corner to give the Nittany Lions a 3-2 lead. Godwin shot fourth for the Chargers, but once again Benedict came up huge and read where Godwin was going and made a diving save to keep the score 3-2 Abington after four shooters.

The game was on Palmer's foot as she shot fifth for the Nittany Lions. After three of the four Abington shooters went left, it was safe to say the Nittany Lions had found which way they wanted to go. Palmer however, shot the ball much straighter than her teammates had. As Lloyd shifted to her right to make the save, the ball tipped off of her fingers and into the goal, giving the Nittany Lions their first-ever NEAC Championship.

Benedict was named the NEAC Playoff MVP for her shutout in the semi-finals and her stellar performance in the final.

"She's a competitor and a winner," Castellanos said. "She gathered herself after allowing those first two goals and was in the zone."

Benedict said she felt good in the shootout and that it felt good to come back to Lancaster and avenge the team's only loss of the year.

"We left everything we had on the field today," Benedict said. "It's amazing to win and it does feel good to come back here and win."

Abington outshot the Chargers 13-12, while LBC held a 7-4 edge in corner kicks. In what was a physical contest, showing just how badly the teams wanted to win, LBC had 19 fouls to Abington's 17.

Despite the loss, the Chargers will represent the NEAC at the NCAA Division III National Championships. Penn St. Abington is not a full NCAA member yet and thus cannot receive the NEAC's automatic qualifier bid to the National Tournament. The Nittany Lions though will play in the ECAC Tournament.

"We will take a day or two to recover from this and start preparing for what's next," Craul said. "It's difficult right now, but we have more to play for."

The Chargers [18-2] will find out who they are playing the NCAA Division III Championships on Monday afternoon.

Though there was little to say to many of the LBC players, one thing seniors Clairmont and Godwin could agree on was that although it was hard to lose today, the team has come very far in four years.

"We've come a long way since the 2008 and 2009 seasons," Godwin said. "This feeling stinks, but we've come a long way."

Clairmont echoed Godwin's sentiments and spoke of the teams' bond with one another.

"The girls have stepped up to the challenge this season," Clairmont said. "It's amazing how much the team has grown and has bought into the vision. We are a united team."

Sunday's loss stings and it will for a few days, but it won't define the 2011 LBC women's soccer team.