Women's lacrosse takes down Harvard in close matchup

The Princeton Women’s Lacrosse team (5-2, 2-0 Ivy League) played in a thrilling match against Ivy League rival the Harvard Crimson (5-3, 1-1 Ivy League) in Cambridge, Mass on Saturday.

For the first half of the game, both teams went back and forth responding to each other’s goals, but the Orange and Black never trailed. The Tigers came out strong right from the start, with a successful first attempt at goal by senior midfielder Anya Gersoff. Harvard midfielder Julia Glynn answered Gersoff’s just ten seconds later with a goal at 25:39. Princeton’s junior midfielder Olivia Hompe scored her first of four goals in the game, to which Harvard almost immediately retaliated with a free-position shot from Marisa Romeo to make the score 2-2. The Orange and Black scored two unanswered goals by Hompe and freshman midfielder Elizabeth George to give them a total of four goals at half. Harvard cut its two-goal deficit late in the first half when Nekele McCall scored off of a pass from Keeley MacAfee. McCall tried again with two seconds left, but junior goalie Ellie DeGarmo shut her down. After stopping a total of 15 goals last weekend, DeGarmo was honored as Defensive Player of the Week for the second time this season on Monday.

Just five minutes into the second half, the Crimson came out and tied the game at 4-4 with a goal from Alexis Nicolia. Hompe was eager to reciprocate and scored two in a row off of assists from freshman midfielder Kathryn Hallett and sophomore attack player Colby Chanenchuck. Maeve McMahon put another one on the board for the Crimson to make it a one-goal game at 6-5 with 10 minutes left.

Julia Glynn scored what would have been the game-tying goal at 50 seconds left, but the attempt was waved off because of an illegal stick. Princeton got possession and Harvard was forced to play one man down. Although Harvard forced a turnover that resulted in two shot attempts byfreshman Megan Henneseybefore the buzzer, both were stopped at the front of the cage.

After a very successful weekend, the Orange and Black will travel down to Maryland to battle Loyola University Maryland. The No. 11 seeded Tigersare set to face off against the Greyhounds this Wednesday, March 30th at 7 p.m.