AMHERST — The defending champions are out.

The Amherst College men’s soccer team was edged out by Brandeis, 3-1 in penalty kicks Saturday. The game was tied 1-1 after regulation and two overtime periods at Hitchcock Field.

Brandeis (12-5-4) will advance to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, while Amherst’s season comes to an end at 17-1-2.

Amherst head coach Justin Serpone closed his 10th season with the program, and had a positive outlook on the season overall.

“We ended up 17-1-2, this senior class lost three games in their four years. We haven’t lost two games in a year since 2011,” Serpone said. “They kept the standard high, and proved that Amherst is not just a good team year in and year out, but a great program and I’m really proud of them.”

Brandeis senior Evan Jastremski opened the scoring in the first 17 minutes of play. The first half ended 1-0 in favor of the Judges.

Amherst came back in the second half when sophomore Fikayo Ajayi beat Brandeis goalie Ben Woodhouse to the back-left corner of the net, tying the game at 1-1.

The game saw three yellow cards. One went to the Judges’ Stephen DePietto in the second half. Amherst had the other two, one for Kieran Bellew in the first half and one for Weller Hlinomaz in the first overtime.  

Amherst outshot Brandeis 20-12 (11-4 on goal), but was unable to convert its chances into goals.

“It was a pretty even game, I thought that Brandeis really battled hard, they have a great program and a great team,” Serpone added. “We had some great chances we came up short. That’s life, right?”

Amherst had chances to score, including a shot by Bellew that hit the post in the 103rd minute.

Neither team was able to score in overtime, so the game went to penalty kicks.

Amherst went first but Bellew’s shot was saved by Woodhouse.

Mike Lynch and Josh Berg each scored for Brandeis, beating Amherst’s Lee Owen.

Jackson Lehnhart put one in for Amherst, and Owen saved a shot from Brandeis’ Josh Ocel, keeping the score 2-1.

Hlinomaz and Bryce Ciambella missed for Amherst.

Zach Vieira clinched the 3-1 win for Brandeis.

Jacqui Collins is a UMass journalism student and can be reached at jacquicollins913@gmail.com and followed on Twitter @Jacqui9Collins.