WW-P South pair shares soccer final four berth

Shemming, Williams end just shy of matchup

By: Justin Feil
   Kristina Shemming and Lindsey Williams were girls’ soccer teammates for two years at West Windsor-Plainsboro High South.
   Both have gone on to play collegiate soccer, Shemming at The College of New Jersey and Williams at Virginia Wesleyan.
   While they have gone their separate ways, the former Pirate standouts nearly were reunited on the field as opponents at the Division III final four last weekend. Both first played roles in shootout victories the week before that helped them advance beyond the elite eight. Both were playing in their first final four that was hosted at the Disney Wide World of Sports Complex.
   "She’s the only person I really knew that I would have had the chance to play," said Williams, junior goalkeeper for the Marlins. "I wanted the chance to play her in the finals. After seeing the (final) outcome, I think we would have had a good chance. It would have been a good game."
   Shemming and Williams never had that chance to play against each other. Both now share some dislike for Wheaton College, which ended their seasons with losses — Williams’ in the semifinals Friday and Shemming’s in the national final Saturday. Both can look forward to the potential to meet again for next year’s national championship.
   "I definitely think it’s a possibility," said Shemming, a freshman forward at TCNJ. "Maybe next year we’ll get to play each other."
   The two had been hoping to meet up this year, but had to settle for seeing each other at the pre-tournament banquet on Thanksgiving and then in the hotel where both teams were staying in Florida. They found out the previous weekend that they had the potential to play each other for the national title.
   "It was really weird," Shemming said. "She gave me a call and I hadn’t talked to her in so long, a year at least. She called me after she had won in penalty kicks and said she’d heard we had won on penalty kicks. We caught up.
   "We talked about playing each other. It would have been so weird. In high school, my first two years I was playing defense. I was in her flat back four. I could have been shooting against her now."
   In a perfect world, maybe those shots would have come in a shootout situation, something both have enjoyed success in this year. Williams forced a pair of misses as the Marlins won, 4-3, in penalty kicks against Washington and Lee to reach the final four.
   "Before that, I hadn’t faced any PKs all season," Williams said. "I knew I was pretty good at them. I told the 10 shooters that if you can just put your shots away, if you can finish, I promise I’ll make at least one save to help us move on to the next round. The first kicker missed and that helped."
   Williams is no stranger to big shootout moments, with one of her biggest coming as a freshman at WW-P South. She stopped the kick of United States national team player Heather O’Reilly, then a sophomore at East Brunswick, in sudden-death penalty kicks to lift the Pirates to the Central Jersey Group IV championship.
   "We talk about it like it was yesterday," said Shemming, who was not in high school at the time but remembers that win well.
   She has her own vivid shootout memory to think about after this year. After Lions keeper Jessica Clarke made two saves of Amherst College penalty kicks, Shemming gave TCNJ a 3-0 lead, and Clarke’s next save won it to send TCNJ to a second straight final four.
   "It’s hard when you’re a freshman and you’re getting ready to shoot and you see all the upperclassmen who you’re not even that close with yet over there," Shemming said. "I thought, you can’t let these people down. When Jess made those saves, it took so much pressure off my shoulders."
   It also helped Shemming the Lions move on to the final four. While it was the first trip for her, it wasn’t for TCNJ. It was a bonus to coming to a school so close to home with a program that is nationally known.
   "When you step into a program like this," Shemming said, "you know the coaches and players, they have the ability to produce national championship teams every year. That’s what the program is built on. You know you have a definite chance to get there. Everyone will work until we get there."
   Shemming helped TCNJ reach the national finals but she was injured in its 1-0 double-overtime win over Messiah College on Friday. That brought a rematch with Wheaton, which defeated the Lions, 3-2, earlier in the year. Shemming could not help the Lions in the second meeting.
   "I hurt my leg in the beginning of the tournament," she said. "I didn’t get to contribute as much as I would have liked. But the whole experience is amazing."
   While winning a national crown is the ultimate goal, just getting there is half the battle. There are no easy roads. Williams had to make a pair of saves in the Marlins’ second-round 5-3 shootout win over Johns Hopkins. Last Saturday, her penalty kick saves helped Virginia Wesleyan reach the first final four in program history.
   "Obviously, it was a really exciting and amazing experience to be in the final four," Williams said. "To be at Disney in such a nice complex, the fields are perfect and everything was set up so professionally. It’s cool to know you’re one of the top four teams in the country.
   "Yeah, it’s disappointing to not win or say we played in that final game. But we lost to the team that won. We lost to the national champions. They possessed very well. They had some great opportunities. They finished on two of them. We had some chances we could have finished on. We’re OK with it. We had a great time. We got to experience something a lot of teams and players never do. As far as next year, it’s feasible for us to be back there."
   Virginia Wesleyan loses just two of its top players. Williams will return for her senior after breaking her own program record with 15 shutouts this season. The Marlins finished the year 18-4-4 and captured the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship for the first time ever as well.
   "I always knew we could go far," Williams said. "I didn’t know we could make it to the final four, but I always hoped and thought it was a possibility. We had the players. We had the individual talent. It was a matter of putting it together."
   Shemming knew she was stepping into a good program, which made contributing as a freshman all the more special. She finished tied for third on the team in points with seven goals and two assists. The Lions finished 18-2-2 with both losses coming against Wheaton.
   "It was definitely a lot better than I expected," Shemming said. "Everything happened last minute as far as coming here. It’s the same caliber as Division I so I never expect to step on the field much. I was very happy and surprised with everything that happened."
   The only disappointment comes in that neither WW-P South graduate returned with a national championship. That chance exists for next year, and with both Kristina Shemming and Lindsey Williams making big contributions on highly ranked teams, they might just have to go through each other to get it.