Victory over Penn State ends slide for w. lacrosse

The women's lacrosse team has not lost four games in a row since head coach Chris Sailer first took the reins in 1987, but the Tigers entered this weekend in danger of doing just that. After dropping a game at home to Loyola before break and losing on the road to No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Virginia, No. 6 Princeton (2-3) finally stopped the bleeding Saturday with a much-needed 10-7 victory over No. 11 Penn State (3-3) Saturday.

Princeton was led by junior midfield Theresa Sherry, who had four goals in the win.

Sherry put the Tigers on track early, netting two goals in the first five minutes to give Princeton a 2-0 lead. Another goal by Sherry plus scores by senior midfield Alex Fiore and junior attack Whitney Miller built the Princeton lead to 5-0 before the Nittany Lions could put a point on the board.

Penn State refused to hand Princeton the win without a fight, however, and the Nittany Lions put two shots behind sophomore goaltender Sarah Kolodner to draw within two at halftime.

The break rejuvenated the Tigers, who came out strong early in the second half and regained the momentum with Fiore's second goal of the game. Penn State once again answered back, but goals by sophomore midfield Elizabeth Pillion and junior defense Katie Yakulis gave Princeton a comfortable 8-3 lead in the game.

Once again, Penn State fought back. Two goals by Shari Maslin and one by Colleen O'Hara brought the Nittany Lions within striking distance at 8-6 with 11 minutes and 52 seconds remaining in the game. But they would get no closer. Pillion found the back of the net for the second time in the game and Sherry scored her fourth of the day — and team-leading tenth of the season — to make the score 10-6. The Nittany Lions were able to put one more by Kolodner with seven seconds remaining, but by that time the game had been decided and the Tigers held on for the 10-7 victory.

Tiger attack

"I think we really pulled together as an attack unit, we stayed calm and looked for opportunities rather than forcing shots as we had been," Pillion said. "Plus, it really helped a lot to be on our home turf. We had a meeting with all our recruits early in the day and then so many people came out to watch us since it was such a beautiful day, so that gave us a lot of support."

Earlier in the week, Princeton traveled south to Virginia to try to recover from its overtime loss to Loyola with a win over the Cavaliers (6-2).

The Tigers came up on the short end of the stat sheet, however, and the Cavaliers used two scoring spurts to earn the 13-8 victory.

After Princeton traded goals with Virginia to knot the score at three apiece 19:30 into the game, Virginia's Tyler Leachman picked up a rebound and buried the ball in the net to give the Cavaliers a lead that they would not relinquish with 6:04 to play in the half.

Virginia built on Leachman's goal while the Tigers played flat. Andrea Pfeiffer caused a turnover in her own half, recovered the ball and found teammate Lauren Aumiller streaking down the arc. Aumiller's goal 2:50 into the second half capped a 4-0 run of Virginia goals, and gave the Cavaliers a 6-3 lead.

Although the Tigers were able to rally late in the game with back-to-back goals by Fiore and Miller, the Cavaliers simply outplayed Princeton and held on for the well-deserved win. Virginia held a 17-6 edge in draw controls, took 33 shots to Princeton's 15, scooped up 29 ground balls to the Tigers' 22 and committed two fewer turnovers in the game.

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But Princeton would soon learn that statistics do not always tell the full story of a game. Three days later, the Tigers took on Duke in Durham, N.C., and dominated the scoring sheet, but earned an 8-4 loss for their efforts.

The Tigers committed fewer turnovers, were whistled for fewer fouls, won more ground balls and took the same amount of shots as Duke, but the Blue Devils' shots seemed to have a bit of black magic in them as they consistently found the back of the net.

Sherry opened the scoring only five minutes in to give Princeton the early 1-0 lead. This would not last long, however, as Duke's Kate Kaiser tied the score up only 1:14 later. When senior Sarah Small scored off a pass from Pillion eight minutes later, the Tigers had their last lead of the game, 2-1.

The Blue Devils scored six of the next seven goals to build a comfortable 7-3 lead and a four-goal margin that would stand up as the final result. After Yakulis scored off a free position shot with a little over five minutes remaining in the game, Duke's Jessica Bennett sealed 8-4 win with 22 seconds left.