The women's soccer team's dream season has finally come to an end. After winning its first round NCAA tournament game Friday against Loyola-Maryland, Princeton dropped its second round match to New Jersey rival Rutgers, 1-0, Sunday at Lourie-Love Field. Despite the loss, Sunday's game — and the season as a whole — stand out among the best all-time for women's soccer at Princeton.
Friday evening, the Tigers squared off against Loyola-Maryland in a match in which Princeton barely flinched. The Tigers won, 3-1, but played well enough to have won by five or six.
Needless to say, however, the Tigers wanted more. Their chance would come Sunday against Rutgers, which defeated Boston University, 4-1, with three goals in less than two minutes late in the second half to advance to the second round. Princeton had defeated its in-state rival, 2-1, Oct. 2 off senior midfielder Liz Patrick's goal with just five minutes remaining. A similar outcome in Sunday's match would lead the Tigers to their first appearance of the third round in the NCAA tournament. Princeton would have faced off against the nation's top-ranked team, North Carolina.
"Everyone knew what was at stake," Shackford said.
Neither team came out firing, at least initially. First half play wasrough and sloppy.
"I don't think either team played well in the first half," Shackford said. "Both teams were feeling things out. They were nervous."
It was this sloppy play on Princeton's part which might have cost the Tigers the game, however. Twenty-six minutes into the half, with neither team controlling play, Rutgers sent what looked like a harmless ball from midfield up the center of the field towards the Princeton net. On any other day, Princeton's defense, solid all year, would have cleared the ball out of bounds.
But not today.
Instead, Rutgers forward Keri Lages, with a burst of speed, beat junior defender Heather Deerin to the ball and dribbled alone on goal. A chip shot went over the outstretched arm of Princeton's senior goalie Catherine Glenn, caught 10 yards out of the net, and rolled into the back of the goal.
"I knew I couldn't beat her to the ball," Glenn said. "But I came out to cut down the angle a bit. She chipped a great ball."
Princeton put up a fight from that point on, in a valiant effort strikingly similar to last Saturday's match against Yale, when the Elis scored a fluky goal early in the first half and then held onto the lead despite constant Princeton pressure in the second half. The Tigers couldn't find the back of the net in that contest, but they seemed destined to find it in this one.
With 10 minutes to go in the game, Princeton really turned on the pressure. They barraged the Rutgers net with four free kicks and three corners. But the Tigers were unable to score — and as the game ended, so too did the Tigers' historic season.
Despite the loss, however, the final minutes in Sunday's game marked arguably the most exciting and memorable in play this year. The final onslaught began in the 77th minute, when Deerin fired a bullet off a free kick 30 yards out that just missed the cross bar. Minutes later, she was thrown out of the game for being awarded her second yellow card of the game. Down to just nine field players — and missing Deerin, the Ivy League player of the Year — the Tigers dug deep.
Their best scoring chance came with just five minutes remaining. Off a free kick, sophomore midfielder Liz Bell curved a ball off her left foot into the box, where it was redirected in midair by freshman forward Esmeralda Negron. The ball just missed the top of the goal. Seconds later, the Tigers hit the top of the cross bar after a corner kick rolled through the box.
The Tigers' biggest missed opportunity of the afternoon might have actually been the result of the referee's discretion, when he let play continue when many Princeton players saw a hand ball in the box in the 75th minute after a Rutgers defender fell on the ball.
Sunday's nailbiter would not have been possible without Friday's 3-1 victory over Loyola. Princeton got on the board early with freshman forward Janine Willis' header at 5:44 of the first half off a cross from junior forward Joan Cundey. Six minutes later the Tigers took a 2-0 lead when senior captain Linley Gober found the foot of Negron, who took a touch and then jammed the ball into the top right corner of the net.
Junior forward Krista Ariss added the exclamation point 24 minutes into the first half with a low shot to beat Greyhounds keeper Danielle Ruppel, putting the Tigers up 3-0. A Loyola goal with just under five minutes to go in the first half was just enough to stop the bleeding temporarily, but the Tigers won, 3-1. Princeton finishes its season with a 14-3-2 record, the best in the program's history, and a share of the Ivy League title, its second in two years. In what Shackford originally called a rebuilding season, the Tigers came out as winners all-around.
"Overall, if you take a step back, this season was a smashing success," Shackford said. "Nobody would have expected this success."
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