The SUNY Oneonta women's soccer team left no doubt of who was the best team in the SUNYAC, as they soundly defeated SUNY Geneseo, 4-1, to capture the 2013 SUNYAC title.  The championship is the 12th for the Red Dragons, which is the most of any school in the SUNYAC.  With the victory, Oneonta (12-4-3) earns the automatic berth into the NCAA Division III tournament, which begins next weekend.

"I am so proud of the girls," said coach Liz McGrail.  "We really came together and played well for 90 minutes.  It is exciting to watch the team playing their best as a team right now."

The announcement of this year's field will be made on Monday afternoon at 1:30 pm on NCAA.com.  Oneonta, who will be making its 14th appearance all-time in the tournament and first since 2010, will find out then when and where they will be playing next.  The Red Dragons won the 2003 National Championship.

Today's offensive output was the sixth time that the Red Dragons scored four or more goals in a match.  Oneonta is firing on all cylinders at the right time, as they are 9-1-3 since Sep. 27, which was a 0-0 tie versus SUNY Cortland.

The leader offensively in the final two games was senior Karly DeSimone (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa), who has been on a tear over the last two weeks.  In today's win, she scored the game's first goal to get things started for the Red Dragons.  DeSimone collected a ball that was not cleared by the Geneseo (7-8-5) defense and one-timed it to the back of the goal for the 1-0 lead in the 20th minute.

DeSimone was named the Most Valuable player of the tournament and was joined on the All-Tournament Team by teammates, Liz Lasota (Cutchogue/Mattituck), Krystal Scott (Centereach/Newfield) and Erica Berry (Bellmore/Kellenberg Memorial).

"This team has chemistry and talent and winning the SUNYAC championship was our goal from the beginning," said DeSimone.  This team is very special and I am looking forward to going deep into the NCAA tournament."

Four minutes later, sophomore Elise Moinzadeh (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) was in the right spot to touch home a ball that got behind the Geneseo keeper after she had made a save.  Julia Sanger had made a save off a Melissa Guglielmo (Somers/Somers) shot, but the ball deflected high into the air and behind her, heading for the goal where Moinzadeh just had to help it across the goal line for the 2-0 lead.

A pair of goals just over three minutes apart early in the second half put the game out of reach for Geneseo.  Lasota, who scored directly on a corner kick, scored the first goal.  Her kick floated and bent towards the goal where it sailed over the keeper's head into the back corner of the goal.

The second goal was set up by a corner kick as well, as senior Amanda Regensburger (Selden/Newfield) sent the ball in from the corner flag, which was headed by Guglielmo first, but it hit the cross bar and came back out before sophomore Jessica Lyden (Burnt Hills/Burnt Hills) got her head on the ball and finished off the play.

The lone goal for the Blue Knights came in the 72nd minute by freshman Erin O'Connor who took a crossing pass from classmate Laurie Knapp before putting it by Oneonta keeper Kelley Murphy (Albany/Colonie Central).  Murphy only had to make three saves today for Oneonta, as she picked up her eighth win of the season.

O'Connor and teammates Alexa Krebs and Samantha Sherman were named to the All-Tournament team from Geneseo.

Shannon Yakopovich and Emma Laffey of Buffalo State and Courtney Szczesniak and Katie Gildemeyer of Brockport rounded out the 11 players selected to the All-Tournament Team.

Today's game was the 11th meeting all-time in the SUNYAC tournament between the two teams.  This was the fourth time that the two have locked up in the championship game and the first since 2003.  With today's win, Oneonta remains unbeaten (3-0-1) against the Blue Knights in the final.

McGrail concluded, "We are excited to see who and where we are playing next weekend in the NCAA Tournament."