Slonaker's late goal propels w. lax past Dartmouth

Most sports have rules — penalty kicks, tenth innings, sudden death and overtime — put in place to prevent ties.

But as far as possession of first place in the Ivy League is concerned, there is no such rule. On Saturday, the women's lacrosse team (10-4 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) defeated its Ivy foe, Dartmouth (9-3, 6-1), by one goal in a game that came down to the last 36 seconds.

That goal came at the hands of the sophomore duo of attack Leigh Slonaker and midfielder Elizabeth Pillion. With the score tied at nine apiece, Pillion — who finished the game with three caused turnovers — checked her Dartmouth opponent's stick, scooped up the ball and sprinted toward the goal as the seconds ticked away.

Glimpsing her teammate streaking to the middle, Pillion fired Slonaker a pass. Slonaker, who has scored three goals in the past two victories over Harvard and Penn, finished the job with a rifle into the back of the net.

The Tigers' 10-9 triumph Saturday tarnished the Big Green's undefeated record and snapped their six-game winning streak in the Ivy League.

A piece of pie?

The Princeton win complicates the Ivy League postseason picture. The best either the Big Green or the Tigers can hope for is a share of the crown. In fact, with Yale also in the running with a 6-1 league record — which includes a win over Princeton and a loss to Dartmouth — the best any of these three teams can hope for is a third of the pie.

With neither team ever gaining more than a two-goal advantage, the game saw no less than seven lead switches, and a verdict did not arrive until the last 36 seconds. The game itself was a case in point for the seesaw that this year's Ivy race has become.

Princeton did not hit the scoreboard until the 12:17 mark, by which point the Big Green had already racked up two goals. Senior midfielder Alex Fiore burst the seam by taking a pass from junior midfielder Mary Beth Hogan and, in one of her signature spin moves past her defender, slotted the ball into the net. Slonaker took just a little over a minute to tie up the game with an unassisted goal of her own.

Senior attack Whitney Miller put the Tigers up by one with another unassisted goal, but the lead soon slipped away when Dartmouth tied the game for the third time.

Princeton took its biggest lead of the game at halftime after junior midfielder Theresa Sherry and sophomore attack Lindsey Biles added a goal apiece in the last five minutes of the first.

But Dartmouth turned Princeton's relatively comfortable cushion back into rocky terrain by opening the second half with a three-goal run to put the Tigers down by one.

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Biles then singlehandedly fired back with a free-position shot to knot the game, followed by another bounce shot past her defender to regain the lead, 9-8.

The Big Green managed to tie the game once again, but Pillion obliterated it once and for all with her assist to Slonaker, who launched the game-winner with under a minute left in the contest.

On the defensive end, sophomore goalkeeper Sarah Kolodner posted 13 saves for the Tigers, outshining Wills — named the league's Defensive Player of the Week last week — who registered just five.

The Tigers need only to beat Brown, ranked fifth in the Ivy League standings with a mediocre 2-3 record, next weekend to win a share of the Ivy League title.

But before that, Princeton will face No. 2 Maryland (16-1) on Wednesday night. The Terrapins were the NCAA champions two years ago but were displaced from that position by Princeton last season. Maryland's only loss this season was a one-goal heartbreaker to No. 8 James Madison, putting the Terrapins a spot below Loyola — which remains undefeated in 14 games.

Dartmouth also has to play two top-20 teams before the tournament — No. 14 North Carolina and No. 4 Duke.

Yale, coming off an 11-5 victory over Cornell, will face Hofstra on Tuesday.

What makes these next few games especially crucial is this: while it is possible for three Ivy teams to share the league crown, there is only one automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. A drawing conducted by the Ivy League's executive director will determine which team moves on to the tournament.