Women's lacrosse extends winning streak

The mantra for the women's lacrosse team Wednesday night was "keep the streaks going." With a resounding 17-3 road rout of Lafayette (0-1), the Tigers (1-0 overall, 0-0 Ivy League) beat the Leopards for the ninth straight time, continued their 10-game winning streak, which goes back to last season, and scored in double digits for the eighth time in those 10 games.

During the first half, the Leopards refused to become submissive road kill for their highly-touted opponents and limited Princeton's lead to 6-2. However, after the break, the Tiger offense exploded, scoring 11 of the game's 12 second-half goals, including a seven-minute, eight-goal backbreaking run. Within three minutes of second-half play, the Princeton lead was seven.

"It's always great to have to show some composure and really play hard to get the win," head coach Chris Sailer said. "I think it was a great opener for us."

Princeton's veteran offensive team overpowered the Lafayette squad. Led by senior attack Theresa Sherry and junior attack Lindsey Biles, who each scored four times, eight different Tigers tallied goals. In fact, the number of Tiger goals, 17, more than doubled the number of shots on goal, eight, garnered by Lafayette.

Junior goaltender Sarah Kolodner played for the first 45 minutes and came up with the only three Tiger saves before being replaced by freshman Colleen O'Boyle. The stifling Princeton defense prevented most of the Lafayette players from bringing the ball near the crease, instead forcing them to take pressured weak-side shots.

The Princeton squad's season opener was an unqualified success. Still, prior to the start of the Ivy League campaign, the Tigers are not lacking in quality competition. Top-ranked Princeton travels to face No. 4 Loyola (2-0) on Sunday in its first big challenge of the season.

"We're excited for the challenge of playing a great team," Sailer said. "We have a lot of young kids in our lineup, but we have a lot of heart and some good experience and some pretty great leaders. So we're going to go out and compete and give it our best."

The Greyhounds defeated the Tigers in heartbreaking fashion in overtime during their first encounter last year. Princeton later exacted its revenge in a 5-3 NCAA Tournament semifinal victory. Just as defense was the key for the Tigers in that match-up, offense will be equally important on Sunday.

Loyola has put up impressive scoring numbers in its first two wins, jumping out to early leads in both games. The Greyhounds also have two talented netminders who will share playing time this season. Kim Lawton had an extremely impressive 2003 campaign in which she posted the nation's best goals-against average, while Cindy Nicolaus led the nation in save percentage last season with an imposing 63 percent. Although Princeton should be able to set up its offense and exploit the Greyhound defense using its superior speed, these two brick walls in net will pose a challenge.