Tyler Green scored into an open net with five seconds to play to give the University of Rochester a 1-0 victory over visiting Hamilton College in the first round of the NCAA Division III men's soccer playoffs at Edwin Fauver Stadium.

Green's goal puts the Yellowjackets into the second round at Stevens Institute of Technology on Saturday. Rochester improved to 9-5-3. Hamilton finishes the season at 11-4-1.

The goal came when Rochester earned a corner kick with 20 seconds to play. Patrick Ripp played it out of the left corner well past the far post. Bobby Milenovici chased the ball down and hit an arching cross back towards the goalmouth. Eric Meister pushed it to the back post. Neil Osuch sent it into the middle and Green drove it high into the net.

Hamilton goalkeeper Trevor Clarkson got caught up in the pinball swinging of the ball in the area and was off his line when the ball was struck.

"I'm always in the box," Green said. "Everything slowed down (when the ball arrived) and I knew I had to blast it."

Until that point, Clarkson and the Hamilton defense did a solid job of fending off consistent Rochester pressure.

"They made a great decision at halftime," said Hamilton coach Perry Nizzi of the Yellowjackets. "They were home and decided to come out in the second half and throw everything at us."

Rochester had coach Chris Apple agreed with his counterpart. "At halftime, we talked about going to three front runners, or to drop one forward back and try to win the ball in midfield. Hamilton was winning midfield in the first half.

"Matt Sulkin, one of our captains said we should play three high (forwards) and go at them. The team agreed and that's what we did."

The second half was barely four minutes old when both teams missed good chances. For Rochester, second half substitute J.J. Dennstedt sent a lead pass to Nick Mikolenko and his hard left-footer from 17 yards was saved by Clarkson. Seconds later, Dennstedt crossed the ball from left wing and Clarkson got to it just ahead of Green.

Hamilton had what it wanted immediately. A long through ball from midfield sent Ian Hildebrand on a breakaway. He cut into the box and as he drew back his foot to shoot, Rochester's Jeremy Gaden poked the ball away for a corner kick.

"Gaden made an incredible play to get to the ball," Apple said.

"The breakaway was huge," Nizzi said. "(Gaden) came out of nowhere. If we could drop back and defend that lead, it would have been tough for them to score two goals to beat us."

Rochester's three forward combination in the second half created some defensive difficulties for Hamilton. "We had trouble figuring out the marking," Nizzi said. "They threw eight forward."

"We wanted to be relentless for 90 minutes," said Osuch. "We were focused on going forward."

And with Green's goal, they will go to the second round of the tournament.