W. lacrosse hosts Georgetown in rematch of national title game

Last year, the women's lacrosse team lost once. That was against Georgetown in the season opener, a fight that lasted all the way into double overtime and could easily have gone in Princeton's favor. Bitten once, the Tigers (3-3 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) spent the rest of their perfect 18-0 season sharpening their own teeth for the national championship, when they would face Georgetown once again and heroically devour the title.

Tonight, the No. 4 Hoyas (5-1 overall, 2-0 Big East) are coming back to Princeton for revenge.

If this year's statistics are a better measure than last year's of how the two teams will fare, Georgetown seems to have the upper hand. Until this past weekend, when they lost to Duke, 14-11, the Hoyas had been sweeping through their schedule with a perfect 5-0 record.

Princeton, on the other hand, has not been living up to expectations record-wise and has tumbled down the national rankings from its No. 1 preseason spot to No. 6. After an early victory against Lafayette, the team lost its first game since last year's fated opener against Georgetown and went on to lose two more after that.

The Tigers' pair of recent victories over No. 11 Penn State and Columbia, while breaking their losing streak and keeping them undefeated in the Ivy League, only made up for those three earlier losses and evened their record to a mediocre .500.

But the statistics negate the crucial point that Princeton has been playing a much tougher schedule than Georgetown has so far.

The Tigers' initial 9-8 loss to Loyola is actually quite impressive, considering that the Greyhounds are now ranked No. 1 in the national polls. The other two teams that defeated Princeton this year — Duke and Virginia — are currently ranked No. 3 and No. 5, respectively.

Conversely, the highest-ranked team besides Duke that Georgetown has faced so far is No. 8 Syracuse, followed by No. 17 Stanford.

So despite their inferior ranking, the Tigers actually have a competitive edge over Georgetown, having already played against the best of the best.

Georgetown and Princeton have undergone similar changes since last year, both losing their leading scorers to graduation. Most notable for the Hoyas was attack Erin Elbe, who scored six goals against Princeton in last year's opener — more than most teams could ever muster against the indomitable Tiger defense. Elbe's equivalent on the Princeton front was attack and leading scorer Lauren Simone '02, who graduated as the NCAA tournament MVP and landed a spot on the All-America first team.

But like Princeton, Georgetown also returns an entourage of skillful players who have been to the Final Four and know how to win big games.

Among the Hoyas' core group is senior attack Wick Stanwick, who, besides leading her team in scoring, is hailed as one of the best one-on-one attackers in the nation. She posted four goals in the championship game against Princeton last year, and she repeated that feat this year against Duke. Following Stanwick in scoring are sophomore Allison Chambers and senior Liz Ryan — other competitors the Tigers will need to detain in tonight's game. Led by these players, Georgetown has outscored the competition by a margin of 69-31 this season.

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Anchoring the Hoya defense is sophomore goalie Sarah Robinson, who has registered an impressive 51 saves and maintains a 6.25 goals against average.

The Tigers will have to control these key Hoya players tonight in order to maintain the upper hand. But besides them, there is another more difficult opponent to worry about.

As junior midfield Theresa Sherry put it, "[Georgetown] has a couple good players that we will put our best defenders on, but we will probably mostly focus on ourselves, because if we are playing the best we can, we can beat anybody."