W. lacrosse slips by No. 2 Georgetown

As Thomas Paine once wrote, "the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

Such sentiment aptly described the game this weekend for women's lacrosse. Princeton (7-0 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) earned a 9-7 road victory over Georgetown (5-1) in its closest contest to date. In this highly anticipated match-up between the nation's two top-ranked Division I teams — the Tigers were ranked No. 1 according to United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll — Princeton once again demonstrated an ability to defeat pretenders to the throne and further substantiated its claim to the crowning position in women's lacrosse.

Although Princeton has enjoyed much of its success this season by taking advantage of early-game scoring runs, it was the Hoyas who jumped out to the early lead. Midway through the first half, Georgetown clung to a 2-0 lead, though play on both sides was relatively even.

Junior midfielder Ingrid Goldberg pulled the Tigers within one twice in the first half, singlehandedly providing the offense Princeton so desperately needed. On a free-position shot 16 minutes into the game, she put the Tigers on the scoreboard. However, the Hoyas answered back just over two minutes later. Georgetown's Gloria Lozano received a feed from behind the cage and slipped it past junior goalie Sarah Kolodner to once again relegate the Tigers to a two-goal deficit.

"No one on our team has any problem coming back from being a couple of goals down," Goldberg said. "When they score first and get a lead, it just gives us more fire on the offensive end. We're not anxious at all — instead, we're motivated."

With 2:55 left in the first half, Goldberg beat Hoya goalie Sarah Robinson to a groundball and skipped it into the net before Robinson could recover. Princeton retired to the locker room at halftime trailing for the first time this season. It also marked the first time that junior midfielder Lindsey Biles would fail to tally a first half score. Georgetown's ability to shut down the prolific Tiger offensive combination of senior attack Theresa Sherry and Biles contributed to the Hoya's first half success.

"At halftime, we talked a lot about the offense, about how we weren't playing our game," Goldberg said. "The seven of us on the field weren't working together, so we never got into a flow."

With the Tigers down 5-2, after Georgetown had scored back-to-back goals just over a minute apart to start the second half, the Princeton offense finally sparked. In the next 11 minutes, the Tiger offense garnered five straight goals to secure the lead. Junior midfielder Elizabeth Pillion released the floodgates with an unassisted goal, and Biles contributed her first of the game minutes later.

Still, the huge momentum shift in favor of Princeton came with 15 minutes remaining in the game. Within a period of 1:49, the Tigers' leading scorer, Sherry, registered all three of her goals. She converted Princeton's 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 lead and left the Hoya's staggering.

After Georgetown's Michi Ellers pulled her team within one goal, Goldberg blasted the eventual game-winning shot with nine minutes to go on her second free-position goal of the game. Biles added a vital insurance goal two minutes later. Still, the Hoyas would not be denied a chance at the win. Sarah Oliphant, Georgetown's leading scorer, notched her third goal of the day with just over three minutes remaining in the game to make the score 9-7.

The Hoyas then retained possession after the goal with three of Princeton's top players on the bench with yellow cards. Although Kolonder only recorded five saves on the day, none was bigger than her monster stop with just over a minute remaining to crush any of Georgetown's comeback hopes.

When you consider what the Tigers faced — a hostile road environment and the need to come from behind against a very skilled opponent — the significance of this team triumph is "paine"-fully obvious.