The Princeton women's soccer team re-established its habit of dominance last night as it beat Fairfield (13-5, 7-2 MAAC) 4-0 and extended its streak of games without a loss to eight.
The Tiger scoring came early and furiously, as Princeton built its 4-0 lead before the end of the half against its much-weaker opponent.
With consistently strong build-up in the back and good movement in the front, freshman midfielder Esmeralda Negron netted the first two and sophomore forward Theresa Sherry found the back of the goal for the team's third.
"We played so well in the back that we were able to get the ball wide and to our forwards," senior defender Jess Collins said.
The fourth goal of the evening, scored by freshman forward Kristina Fontanez, exemplified the type of build-up and domination Princeton maintained the entire evening.
The play leading up to the goal started with the Tigers passing the ball around the perimeter of the Stag midfield. Most everybody on the team — the defenders, midfielders and forwards — got into the action of moving the ball and spreading the Stag defense.
Finally, the ball was played to Sherry who made a nice touch and saw the ball to the feet of Fontanez. The Poughkeepsie native then took on her defender, passed her with a good cut inside and beat the keeper to the near post with 51 seconds left in the half.
In tallying that goal, Princeton's passing, build-up, sweet touch, and quickness were all demonstrated — and Fairfield just could not compete.
"I thought we played well tonight," head coach Julie Shackford said. "We took care of the ball, made our chances, got our goals, and got everybody playing time, so that's a positive."
Maybe as a result of the disparity of the two teams, the game was also marked by unusually passive play, with neither team wanting to get injured and a total of only 12 fouls in the game.
After the big Tiger first half, the second half started with a number of player changes as the Tigers tried to get in a large rotation of players and pass the minutes around. Maybe as a result of the player changes, play was slightly more even, and the Stags got off most of their eight shots.
Last evening's matchup with Fairfield was the Tigers' first game since Saturday's 1-1 tie with Penn.
"Coming off Penn, we weren't satisfied with our performance, so we just wanted to put on a better performance this evening," Collins said.
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