BOSTON, Mass. - Despite two second half goals from sophomore Paige Haley (San Diego, Calif.) and freshman Chiara Bernardi (Santa Barbara, Calif.) to square the game 2-all, junior Cassie Levesque (Methuen, Mass.) netted the game winner for UMass.-Boston as the Beacons squeaked by the Emerson women's soccer team in a 3-2 non-conference win on Tuesday night at Rotch Field. The win was the first of 2016 for the Beacons. 

Emerson falls to 2-3, while UMass.-Boston moves to 1-4. 

Not much went right for Emerson in the first 45 minutes and UMass.-Boston capitalized on defensive errors and missed goal opportunities from the Lions. In fact, it took the Beacons nearly eight minutes to get on the board. With a crowd of both Emerson and UMass.-Boston defenders in front of the net, sophomore Kate Leavitt (Plymouth, Mass.) buried her first goal of the season past Emerson senior goalie Melanie Escobar (Torrington, Conn.) to give the Beacons an early 1-0 edge (37:45). 

10 minutes later, the Beacons struck again. On a misplay by the Lion defense, freshman Gigi Braga (Medford, Mass.) broke away from an Emerson defender, crossed over to the middle and sent the Beacons' second goal of the game past Escobar to take the 2-0 lead (27:40). 

The Lions began to find rhythm and nearly got themselves on the board late into the first, but two diving stops by UMass.-Boston sophomore goalie Alyssa Fugiel (Easthampton, Mass.) held the Beacons' 2-0 lead.

Emerson found themselves in a two goal deficit at halftime despite outshooting the Beacons, 12-6. 

In the opening minutes of the second half, Emerson spared little time to pull themselves together and joined in on the scoring mix. 47 seconds into the second frame, Haley rocketed the first goal for the Lions into the bottom left corner past the reach of Fugiel (45:47) to cut the Beacons lead in half at 2-1. Emerson was not done scoring for Bernardi netted the equalizer off a corner kick from sophomore Kira Venturini (Wallingford, Conn.). After 53 minutes in the books, the game was squared at 2-all. 

The two teams continued to take shot after shot only to have the ball narrowly miss, that is until Levesque launched the ball by the Emerson bench and it grazed the top of Escobar's fingertips to put the Beacons on top, 3-2 (66:43). Emerson had their chance to square the game at 3-all on a penalty kick, but Fugiel dove to her right and helped seal the Beacons' 3-2 victory. 

Emerson returns to the field on Saturday for a road tilt against Wellesley at 12:00 p.m. UMass. - Boston returns to action tomorrow as they head at Babson for a 4:00 p.m. contest.