W. lacrosse goes 3-0 over break, improves to No. 2 nationally

While many Princetonians were gliding down the ski slopes or lounging on the beaches this past week, the women's lacrosse team was hard at work. The Tigers took on Virginia, Duke and Penn State over vacation, defeating all three to climb to No. 2 in the polls.

Princeton (5-1) began its string of games with opponents ranked in the top 15 with a match-up against No. 6 Virginia (6-2) on St. Patrick's Day. The "luck of the Irish" was with the Tigers as they dodged a late Cavalier rally and escaped with a hard-fought 13-11 win.

The contest opened well for Princeton as junior attack Alex Fiore found the back of the net at one minute, 11 seconds to give the Tigers the early edge. Senior attack Kim Smith then padded the Princeton lead with two goals within the next six and a half minutes to widen the margin to three only eight minutes into the game.

Virginia responded with two goals by Cary Chasney to cut the lead down to one, but the Tigers answered back with three straight to increase their edge to four at 18:30 of the first half.

The game continued to see-saw back and forth until the horn sounded to end the first thirty minutes of play with Princeton up, 7-5.

The Tigers charged out of halftime, and goals by Fiore, senior captain Lauren Simone and junior attack Whitney Miller widened their lead to five only 5:48 into the second half.

After two more scores from both sides, the difference remained five at 12-7 with 15 minutes to play in the contest. The Cavaliers refused to simply lie down and die for the Tigers, however, and stormed back to within one with four unanswered goals in the next nine minutes.

On the verge of losing the lead that they had held since the opening minutes of the game, the Tigers needed somebody to step up and stop the bleeding. Miller did just that when she netted an unassisted goal with 4:39 remaining in the game, providing the final 13-11 margin.

"We had a little bit of trouble with Virginia in part because we just weren't as crisp with our passing as we usually are," Miller said. "Overall, though, it was a good effort and we beat a great team."

Simone credited the win to the Tigers' ability to stay cool under pressure.

"When we had some lapses where we let them back in the game the important thing was that we maintained our confidence and played our game. We didn't let them affect our attitude," Simone said.

After disposing of Virginia, Princeton hosted Duke on a rain-soaked Wednesday. The Blue Devils (5-3) had been ranked No. 1 in the two previous coaches' polls but were coming off a loss to rival North Carolina the previous weekend.

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The Tigers were happy to prolong the Blue Devils' losing streak, as they thrashed Duke, 13-5.

Princeton dominated the game from the start and raced out to an 8-0 lead by halftime. One of the major factors in this dominance was Smith, who poured in five goals in the first 30 minutes.

The Tigers had five different goal-scorers on the day and also received excellent play from freshman goaltender Sarah Kolodner, who improved to 3-0 as a starter.

"We're playing very, very complete games right now," Simone said.

"Our transition game was really good both offensively and defensively," Miller said. "The attack disrupted the Duke defense so that they couldn't clear the ball out of their end, and defense was equally good at causing turnovers in our own half."

After huge wins over Virginia and Duke, the Tigers traveled to Penn State to take on the No. 12 Nittany Lions (3-3).

Princeton rode six goals by Simone to a 17-8 victory over the Lions. Kolodner once again started for Princeton, notching her fourth win of the season.

The Tigers will open their Ivy League season this week as they take on Columbia and Cornell.