On a sloppy Lourie-Love Field Saturday afternoon, in a battle of Ivy League titans, only one team could stay on its feet.
In the end, the women's soccer team walked away with the win, leaving Dartmouth sprawled in the mud, having lost the battle for balance — and league dominance.
Princeton (5-0 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) defeated the Big Green, 1-0, keeping its perfect record intact. Senior forward Amy Reyes scored the lone goal of the contest in the 10th minute of the second half.
On a rain-soaked pitch of grass and mud, the cleats of the Big Green team could not keep a foothold on either end of the field, and could not stop Reyes from netting the game's lone goal.
Reyes broke away from Dartmouth's defenders and watched netminder Kristin Luckenbill come out of her box. The goalie dived towards the ball — but misjudged the timing and the wet grass — and fell too soon.
...The Tiger forward took advantage of Dartmouth's misstep, and crossed the ball into the net, behind the fallen form of the goalkeeper.
"We knew their backs were panicking when we got too deep, so I was able to take advantage of that," Reyes said.
On the other end of the field, Dartmouth (3-2, 0-1) was able to get more scoring chances than Princeton's previous opponents, but the Tiger defense held strong and remained unscored upon for the season.
"They did a good job overloading our weaker side on the defense," junior defender and captain Kelly Sosa said. "They got a lot of runners in deep, so they were able to get off more shots."
One of the closest calls near the Princeton net came soon after the Tigers had scored.
A Dartmouth forward was able to sneak by the Princeton defenders, but as senior goalie Jordan Rettig came out to stop her shot, the Big Green attacker slipped and fell, ruining the scoring opportunity.
While Dartmouth was slipping, both on the field and in the Ivy League standings, the Tigers were playing focused soccer.
"I think it was our most complete game," head coach Julie Shackford said. "We battled all 90 minutes. We were dangerous."
Although the first half was mostly played around the midfield, there were a few near misses by the Tiger offense.
In the 23rd minute, sophomore forward Krista Ariss knocked off a shot that seemed to be heading straight for the back of the net. It went past the goalkeeper, bounced off the upper right post, then back and off the left post. Finally, the Dartmouth goalie was able to get the ball under control, and keep the game scoreless.
In the second half, the Tigers turned up the offensive pressure, but after Reyes slipped past the goalie to score, no other shots found the net.
"After we got one goal up, we had a lot of positive momentum," Shackford said. "Of course we would have liked another goal, but in these league games, we knew it was probably going to be decided by only one goal."
For the last 20 minutes of the game, the ball hardly left the Dartmouth end, as the Tiger attack pressed closer and closer, harrying the Big Green defense with shot after shot.
The Tigers ended up with 11 shots to Dartmouth's six, but Rettig needed to make only two saves, while Luckenbill was forced into seven.
Rettig's goals-against average remained a sterling 0.00, tying her with two other goalkeepers for the best in NCAA Division I.
The Tiger defense knows its string of shutouts cannot last, but they were glad that it remained untouched Saturday.
"We came in ready for a big game," Sosa said. "We wanted to prove to the league how well we could play, and we definitely did that today."
With this win, Princeton remains atop the Ivy League with two games under its belt, having defeated two of the other three Ivy teams that went to the NCAA tournament last year.
The Tigers return to action Tuesday at Lourie-Love Field, where they take on in-state rival Rutgers. Their next Ivy game is against perennial league cellar-dweller Columbia on Saturday in New York.
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