GENEVA, NY (November 4, 2017) – The Vassar College men's soccer team will be playing in their second straight Liberty League Finals after defeating St. Lawrence 1-0 on Saturday afternoon in the semifinals.

On a cloudy and brisk fall afternoon, senior Reid Smith tallied his first goal of the season to push the Brewers past the Saints. In the 31^st minute, the midfielder collected the ball near the top of the box and fired a low shot that snuck its way through traffic and into the back net.

Much of the first half was back and forth as both sides had their chances. St. Lawrence had seven total shots in the opening 45 minutes and goalkeeper Matt Marcelino was forced to make two fantastic saves to keep the ball out of the back of the net. Oddly enough, those would be his only two saves of the day. The Vassar defense forced the rest of the Saints' shots wide as kept their mark on all their offensive chances.

Saint Lawrence looked like the better team on the stat sheet, outshooting Vassar 11-7, but the Brewers put more on target, 5-2. The Saints' eight corner kicks way outnumbered the Brewers' one, but the again the Vassar defense held strong on each one of them.

Jose Novas led the Brewers with three total shots, including two on goal. Tanner Sands, Smith, Toby Stansell, and Mattie Mrlik each registered one shot on the day.

"The difficulty is when you play a team that you've beaten in the regular season and they're a very good team. St. Lawrence has awesome players and they're very well coached," said Head Coach Andy Jennings. "We got the goal early and it was a matter of us holding on. But when you do beat a team in the regular season, the motivation for them to come beat us is high, and we knew it was going to be a tough game. I thought we hung in there really well, it wasn't the prettiest game, it was a hard, physical game. But overall, it was great and tomorrow is going to be another very, very difficult game. Hobart is a very well coached team, they've got great players, and it's just a matter of us going out there and performing the best we can. The guys are enjoying it and that's the important thing. We're having a lot of fun doing this."

With the win, Vassar moves on to face the top seeded Hobart Statesmen in the League Championship Game tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. on Cozzens Field in Geneva, NY. Hobart topped RIT 2-0 in their semifinal match earlier in the day to earn the right to play for the title.