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LEWISTON — There weren’t many chances to be had for the Bates College field hockey team Saturday afternoon.

The Bobcats cashed in one of the few they had.

Elsa Copeland scored on a corner just under three minutes into the third quarter, and the fourth-seeded Bobcats held on for a 1-0 victory over No. 25 Amherst in the second round of the NCAA Division III tournament.

Bates (16-3), the New England Small College Athletic Conference champion, reached the quarterfinals for the second straight season and will play No. 6 Tufts in the semifinals Sunday in Lewiston. Tufts, which advanced with a 2-1 overtime victory against Williams, defeated Bates 8-0 in the regular season.

“We’ve just been talking about one more day together, that’s what we’re fighting for,” coach Dani Kogut said. “It’s huge to make it to the Elite Eight, it takes so much. We’re just really proud of the team.”

Saturday’s win didn’t come easily, as the Mammoths (9-9) outshot the Bobcats 7-4 and spent most of the last 20 minutes of play at the offensive end of the field.

“Any NESCAC game is going to be tight. This conference is just undeniably the absolute top in the country,” Kogut said. “We know it (comes down to) the inches in this conference.”

After managing only one shot in the first half, the Bobcats got the break they needed early in the the third quarter.

Sustained pressure resulted in three corners in under two minutes. On the third attempt, Amy LaBelle had a shot from the edge of the circle that was blocked. Copeland was in place for the follow, though, and after her first shot was stopped, her second got past goalie Grace Puchalski for a 1-0 lead with 12:03 to go in the third quarter. The goal was upheld upon review to make sure the ball crossed the line.

“That was a corner we ran back when we played Amherst the first time … so we knew that would be open,” Copeland said. “I took a little too much ball speed off but got the rebound, and rebounds are where we were looking to make most of our shots this game.”

It was the first wave of Bates pressure after what Kogut called a “cautious” first half.

“We talked a lot about just putting our weight forward and being a little bit more on our toes and hunting for the ball,” she said. “We really tried to shift the momentum. I think that first half, we were feeling the game out a little bit too much.”

After taking the lead, Bates kept the Mammoths from getting good looks. Of the seven Amherst shots, only three were on net, and Bates allowed only one corner. The Mammoths’ best chance came with 7:12 to go when Genevieve Caruso went in alone but Ava Donohue came out to make the save.

Senior back Haley Dwight said defense was a focus after a mistake-prone NESCAC final against Wesleyan last weekend.

“Coming into today, we (said) they might have more opportunities, but we’re going to play clean defense, we’re going to have our stick down, we’re going to avoid our feet,” she said. “We’re just going to play our best hockey.”