W. Lax to take on Yale this weekend with hopes of gaining lead Ivy spot

This Saturday, the women's lacrosse team will host Yale in its third Ivy League game of the season.

Yale has a long history of losses against Princeton to overcome going into this match. The past 10 contests between the two teams have gone in Princeton's favor by an average margin of six goals.

Last year, the Tigers defeated the Elis 13-8, but it was not exactly a painless victory. Although Princeton opened the second half with a six-goal lead, Yale scored five unanswered goals to narrow the gap to one.

Luckily for Princeton, the team was able to hold onto its lead with goals from current sophomore midfielder Theresa Sherry and also senior attack Lauren Simone.

Princeton (8-1 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) has more wins than Yale overall, its lone loss having been to No. 1 Georgetown in the season opener. But the Elis (7-1, 3-0) have played one more Ivy game and thus currently hold first place in the league.

Those three victories came against Penn, Dartmouth, and Harvard — three Ivy teams besides Yale and Brown that Princeton has yet to play. Not knowing how the Tigers fared against the other teams Yale has already defeated makes it difficult to gauge what level of competition the Tigers can expect as they prepare for Saturday's game.

Seeing as Yale defeated Dartmouth — a team that has won six of the past seven Ivy League titles (sharing that honor with Princeton last year) and has been the only team besides Princeton to take first place since 1994 — it is clear that Yale has emerged this year as a threatening third contender in the Ivy race.

One of the Elis' most deadly assets is their quickness. They have been especially effective at exploiting this advantage through smooth transitions from defense to offense that are difficult for slower teams to stop.

"Yale is a fast team with a good transition offense. They love to feed from behind the crease and work off picks and stacks," head coach Chris Sailer said. "Our defense will be challenged to stop Yale's fast break, mark their cutters tightly, and take away the easy passing lanes."

What also sets this year's Yale squad apart from last season's, and what Princeton will have to be prepared for, is the addition of several powerful freshmen who have added considerable talent and depth.

One of the most notable is Katie Sargent, a multi-talented midfielder who has been called on to fill the holes left by those lost to graduation. So far, she has been doing a good job, slinging three goals against Harvard and one goal against Dartmouth.

Also contributing to the Bulldog lineup is senior goaltender CK Barber, who took her junior season off. Both Barber and returning junior Amanda Laws have been sharing time in net, and in three Ivy games Yale has allowed an average of only eight goals a game to slip by.

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Returning to lead the Elis in scoring are junior attack Clarissa Clark, a 2001 honorable mention All-Ivy selection, and sophomore midfielder Miles Whitman, who led Yale last year with 35 goals and was unanimously named Ivy League Rookie of the Year.

In order to beat Yale, the Tigers will need to keep doing what they have been doing so effectively all season: putting constant pressure on the other team to cause turnovers and prevent easy transitions.

In their last game against Delaware on Wednesday night, what contributed substantially to their 17-6 win was the fact that the Tigers forced 13 turnovers, while the Blue Hens were only able to create eight.

"Our attackers really pressured well in transition and created many Delaware turnovers which we turned into scoring opportunities," Sailer said.

"We'll need continued strong effort in that aspect of the game on Saturday, as well as being able to control the draws."

Aside from tactical considerations, however, the team that has not lost a game in eight straight matches knows that the only way to continue winning is to keep its standards high and to ward off any complacency that comes with repeated success.

"We are driven to keep raising the bar with our performance every time we take to the field, through our effort, determination, attitude, and execution," Sailer said. "Our mentality is fantastic right now — we know just how much each game, and especially each Ivy game, means to our season, but we're putting emphasis where it correctly belongs – playing the game smart, hard and well."