Claremont, Calif. – Kerry Moller scored the tiebreaking goal midway through the first half and the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Women's Soccer team added two second half goals 1:30 apart to earn a 3-0 win over Pomona-Pitzer in the SCIAC semifinals on Thursday afternoon at Pritzlaff Field.

CMS moves on the SCIAC Championship game on Saturday at top-seeded Cal Lutheran, which defeated Redlands in the other semifinal. Pomona-Pitzer ends its season at 10-6-1, after reaching the postseason for the first time in five years.

The Athenas broke a scoreless tie with 17:03 left in the first half, as they were able to turn the corner near the left endline. A low cross came into the middle of the box, where Shaundra Ullman one-timed a pass to the weak side, and Moller sprinted in and took a 15-yard shot that found the left side of the net to put CMS ahead 1-0.

Prior to the goal, Pomona-Pitzer senior forward Traci Lopez (Santa Fe, N.M.) had two excellent chances for the Sagehens in the opening minutes as she got in behind the CMS defense on two occasions. The first time, defender Jordan Bryant (Pomona, Calif.) played a long ball out of the back, and Lopez timed her run perfectly to beat the offsides trap. However, her shot from the top of the 18-yard box beat CMS goalkeeper Hannah Dunham, but rolled just wide of the right post.

The second time, senior midfielder Rachel Eckerlin (Shoreline, Wash. - pictured) played a ball to Lopez' feet, and she was able to shield a CMS defender on her turn. A second Athena defender came in to help, but Lopez squeezed through both of them and was able to get a step towards goal before firing at the top of the 18-yard box. Dunham, though, came off her line and went down with a sliding save, and sophomore midfielder Allie Tao (Alamo, Calif.) one-timed the rebound just wide of the right post.

The second half saw things unravel quickly for the Sagehens, as the Athenas scored two goals 1:30 apart. The first came on a corner kick, as Lizzie Van Buskirk got to the back post on a curving kick from Madi Shove with 31:51 on the clock.

Just over a minute later, Shove won a 50-50 ball with Pomona-Pitzer goalkeeper Emma Wolfarth (Arlington, Va.) at the top of the box as both players kicked the ball simultaneously. The ball stayed in place, and Shove was the first to recover and bent an 18-yarder into the empty net with 30:22 to play. The Athenas were then able to coast over the last 30 minutes as the Sagehens weren't able to dent the scoreboard.

Pomona-Pitzer was playing in its first SCIAC Tournament game since 2006, when it lost to CMS in an epic 18-round penalty kick shootout after playing to a 1-1 tie. The semifinal game enabled standout seniors Eckerlin and Lopez to end their careers with their first postseason appearance.