Women's lax cruises past Brown

After two gut-wrenching losses in the last week to league-rival Dartmouth and No. 1 Maryland, the women's lacrosse team finished its Ivy League season with a win against Brown, 12-6, Saturday at 1952 Stadium.

....The win moves Princeton (12-3 overall, 6-1 Ivy League) into a tie for a share of the Ivy championship with the Big Green, who, after beating the Tigers last weekend, also moved to 6-1 in the league. Dartmouth, however, receives the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.

The Tigers will learn this weekend if they have earned a spot in the tournament. Princeton has a good possibility of receiving an at-large bid, as the Tigers have racked up a number of impressive non-league wins and are known as a national power after making it to last year's finals.

Saturday's game began with a familiar refrain, as the announcer chimed, "Goal scored by No. 17 Kim Smith at 27:22." The junior attack kicked off scoring for the Tigers unassisted. Brown's freshman attack Meredith Goodell tied it up two minutes later with a quick shot past freshman goalkeeper Meghan McInnes.

Smith caged her second unassisted goal at 21 minutes, nine seconds. One minute later freshman midfielder Theresa Sherry notched her first goal off an assist from junior attack Charlotte Kenworthy. Sherry made a spectacular play, reaching behind her head to corral Kenworthy's pass in front of the net and then flipping it into the back of the net.

Sophomore midfielder Whitney Miller added another goal before the Bears could get on the scoreboard again. The Tiger defense continued to stifle the Brown attack as the Bears would fail to score again during the first half. The Princeton attack, on the other hand, was far from quiet.

Sherry scored her second goal, unassisted, at 11:36 in the first half. With nearly two minutes remaining on the clock, junior attack Lauren Simone received a pass from senior midfielder Julie Shaner and hurled the ball past Brown goalkeeper Nikki Caggiano to give the Tigers a four point advantage. Princeton ended the first half with a 6-2 lead, showing that it was obviously over the slump of its previous two games.

"We definitely learned from the Dartmouth game that we need to control the tempo of every game we play," Simone said. "We did that against Maryland and Brown which resulted in two solid games for us."

Shaner started up the Tiger's scoring onslaught in the second half, after another assist from Kenworthy. Less than a minute later, Kenworthy took a pass from Simone and whipped it into the cage for her first goal. After Smith hit her third unassisted goal at 12:55, she took a pass amidst the Brown defense from Shaner to hurl in her fourth marker of the day.

Junior attack Nina Carbone continued Princeton's scoring spree at 7:43 when she scored her first goal of the day before the Bears' offense could mount any sort of an attack. But Brown's Courtney Johnson snapped Princeton's streak of seven consecutive goals just under a minute later.

While Brown would score three more times in the game, the damage had already been done, and the Tigers took the victory, 12-6.

It was the final regular season home game for Shaner, defender Dayna Federici and goalie Julia Beaver, who all wind down successful careers with the victory.

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Capping off a successful season at home, a number of the Tigers had strong performances this weekend. Smith and Shaner each finished with four points. Smith, the team's leading scorer, added four more to her impressive tally. Shaner led the team in assists with three, and tacked on one goal in the game. Several other players also tallied multiple points. Kenworthy finished with one goal and two assists, Sherry and Carbone scored two goals apiece while Simone had one assist and one goal. Beaver had two saves playing in relief of McInnes at the end of the game.

"We are starting to develop more confidence in ourselves as our play is becoming more consistent on both ends of the field," Simone said. "If we play our best game on attack and defense, we will be a hard team to beat."