Field hockey scores road win at Columbia

Though the outcome of the game was decisive, field hockey's battle with Columbia may have given Princeton just the test it needed.

The Tigers (4-0 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) turned their second Ivy League game into a victory yesterday when they brought down the Lions (3-1, 0-2), 3-1. But Columbia's above-average fight warned Princeton that an Ivy League championship is far from certain.

Princeton took the lead early on as sophomore defender Emily Townsend scored five minutes, 40 seconds into the first half, a moment that would foreshadow the rest of the game.

Not only did it put the Tigers ahead — where they would remain for the rest of the night — but it also reflected the Tigers' final goal of the game. It had been senior attack Hilary Matson and senior midfielder Kellie Maul who assisted Townsend on the opening score. And it was Matson and Maul again who teamed up for the Tigers' third and final goal.

"Hilary Matson had a beautiful shot," Townsend said. "The shot was a bullet."

Such a fearful symmetry enclosed senior attack Melanie Meerschwam's score off of a penalty stroke 4:47 into the second half.

This triumvirate of goals went essentially unanswered. One wimpering goal when it no longer mattered managed to pass sophomore Kelly Baril's tight goaltending. Columbia's Florencia Battilana, assisted by Page McGranahan and Dana Zullo, slipped it in off a penalty corner.

Despite the one-sidedness of the contest, Columbia put up a greater fight than was expected.

'Flukey'

"We didn't play nearly as well as we should have," Townsend said. "The score should have been a lot higher. The score they made was on a flukey corner."

Not a major contender in the Ivy League, the Lions managed to provide a little shock that broke the Tigers' complacency.

"We had a great game against Yale and we were just riding high," Matson said. "It gave us a little reality check. [We were] thinking we could just roll over this team, which just wasn't going to happen."

And complacency will be dangerous this weekend especially, as they go up against a similarly undefeated Dartmouth squad. Don't look to the Big Green to be complacent, as it looks to upset the traditional masters of the Ivy League.

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"I think we definitely know now that we can't go into games thinking all the Ivy games are a pushover," Matson said. "I think everyone knows how much it counts."