The field hockey team showed its mettle this weekend, defeating Northeastern, 4-1, in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and then ousting defending national champions Old Dominion, 2-1, to advance to the Final Four.
Though Princeton played Northeastern first, the Tigers' first true test of the postseason came on Sunday. As expected, Princeton easily overpowered the Huskies, but Sunday's matchup against the Lady Monarchs showed that the Tigers could possibly contend for the national title.
Motivated and confident from their textbook win over Northeastern, the Tigers came prepared to face Old Dominion, whom they had defeated, 2-1, on Sept. 30. The Lady Monarchs, ranked No. 1 entering the tournament, were favored to repeat last year's championship run.
"[Beating ODU earlier in the season] definitely relieves any doubts that you have as far as ability goes," said Princeton coach Beth Bozman. "And I think we're a better team now than we were then."
Princeton came out swinging, with junior attack Ilvy Friebe, the Ivy League Player of the Year, scoring on a corner from freshman midfielder Natalie Martirosian, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, less than 10 minutes into the game. The Lady Monarchs' Lynn Farquhar evened the score 1-1 with 18:25 remaining in the half, however, slipping the ball past junior co-captain Kelly Baril.
Princeton controlled the game for the rest of the first half until, with less than five minutes remaining, ODU was given four corners in a row. Only outstanding defense by Baril and her fellow Tiger defenders allowed Princeton to avoid entering the second half trailing.
Going into the final stanza, the teams knew that their seasons were on the line. Both Baril and ODU goalie Marybeth Freeman had been playing well, and it was likely that the game's next goal would be the decisive one. The beginning of the half was a pleasure to watch, as both teams raised the level of their games.
"We knew whoever played the right side of the field was going to win the game," junior co-captain Emily Townsend said. "So we tried to keep the ball there, on the strong-stick side. Every time ODU went to our left, we tried to force it back right."
At last, after almost thirty minutes of back-and-forth, tense play, sophomore Cory Picketts cut in from the right side of the circle and slipped the ball under the ODU goalie to give Princeton the lead, 2-1, with 5:07 remaining.
"It was a deflection off of one of Old Dominion's defenders," Picketts said. "I didn't want to take the chance on a big swing, so I just pushed it through."
Picketts also came up with two big defensive plays on two ODU corners during the last minute of regulation. Desperately trying to tie the match with 1:08 and 0:38 left, ODU was foiled both times by Picketts and the rest of the Tiger defense. As the Tigers cleared the second corner across the field, time expired, and Princeton achieved its second victory of the year over the Lady Monarchs by the same score of 2-1.
Princeton will play Michigan at Kent State next weekend in an attempt to reach the championship game for the first time since 1998.
All of the same skills the Tigers displayed against Old Dominion were just as visible during the first round match against Northeastern Saturday. Princeton established control early on in the game and never let up. Most of the first half was played on the Huskies' side of the field, and only an excellent performance by the Northeastern goalie kept the Tigers at bay. At last freshman Ashley Sennett scored with 8:22 left in the half, sparking a renewed Princeton offensive effort, but the Tigers were kept scoreless until halftime.
Instead, Northeastern's Krisanne Duchemin scored with eight seconds left, cleaning up a rebound off a save by Baril. The Tigers continued to apply offensive pressure during the second half, though, and did not allow the Huskies another chance at the goal. Sennett, Martirosian, and junior Rachel Becker all had goals in the second half to bring the game to its final score.
Asked about the fact that three of the Tigers' four goals against the Huskies were scored by freshmen, Bozman said, "They've treated every game the same; every game is important. Even in our loss to Penn State the freshmen really showed up."
(Staff writer Sarah Kiernan contributed to this story.)
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