With a victory over Harvard on Saturday, women's lacrosse is now just two games away from a perfect league season and sole possession of the Ivy League title.
After dominating their contest against the Crimson (5-7 overall, 0-4 Ivy League) in Cambridge, Mass., the Tigers (13-0, 5-0) emerged with a 17-7 win.
The victory essentially ensures that Princeton will remain the unanimous choice as the nation's No. 1 team. The Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association has unanimously voted the Tigers as the country's top team for the past six weeks.
In the first four minutes of the game, however, it appeared as if Harvard might present more of a challenge to Princeton than expected. The Crimson controlled possession for those first minutes.
Yet Harvard could not penetrate the rigid Tiger defense for a good look at the net. As soon as Princeton got the ball back, the game's pace changed. Fed by senior attack Theresa Sherry, senior attack Tara Hardiman drove in for the game's first goal.
The Crimson kept the pressure on the Tigers throughout much of the first half. Though Princeton never left its lead behind, Harvard goals from junior midfielder Casey Owens and junior attack Catherine Sproul brought the team within two goals twice, at 4-2 and then 5-3.
Two straight goals, however, gave the Tigers a 7-3 halftime lead. After the break, Princeton capped its run with another two goals. The Crimson then answered with two consecutive goals to bring the score within four again.
From there on, however, the day belonged to Sherry, who ended Harvard's threat.
Over a period of three and a half minutes, Sherry found the net three times in a row, two of those goals coming off assists from junior midfielder Elizabeth Pillion. The Tigers' lead jumped from 9-5 to 12-5, cementing the momentum on the Tigers' side. The Crimson were never able to recover the slow and calculating pace it sought.
After going up 13-7, Princeton closed out the game with another 4-0 spurt, making the final score 17-7.
Sherry once again led the Tigers in scoring, this time topping her four-goal performance against Penn on Wednesday with a career high of six goals. She now has 38 goals and 48 points on the season, leading the team in both categories. She also has 151 career goals.
Freshman attack Kathleen Miller, senior attack Liza Hillenbrand and freshman midfield Christine Dobrosky each contributed a pair of goals to Saturday's effort in the Tigers' multi-pronged attack.
"I think we all just feed off each other for the intensity and the high level of play that we all want," Miller said after the team's 10-3 defeat of the Quakers.
Her team certainly maintained that intensity against the Crimson.
Along with an earlier 17-goal performance against Temple, Saturday's contest equaled Princeton's season high in goals scored.
Harvard's Owens posted a hat trick with three goals in the game, but the Tigers kept most of her teammates relatively quiet around the net. Junior goaltender Sarah Kolodner made six saves on the night.
The Crimson's loss left the team winless in league play. Harvard's record is not indicative of its talent level, however — it had lost its three previous Ivy contests by a total of four goals.
For the Tigers, the victory was their 22nd straight dating back to last April. The game also represented the 12th consecutive time Princeton had defeated the Crimson.
The Tigers are taking the season one step at a time. Though the NCAA Championships loom in the distance, the league championship is the team's immediate goal.
"We want to be the top team in the Ivies, which is our focus right now," head coach Chris Sailer said.
Only Dartmouth and Brown stand in the way of the Tigers reclaiming the Ivy title.
Last year, Princeton shared the league crown with the Big Green and Yale. This year, with the Elis out of the picture, undefeated Dartmouth presents the biggest obstacle to the Tigers' hopes for sole possession of the league title.
The game against the Big Green, also 5-0 in league play, will be at 3 p.m. on Apr. 24 at Class of 1952 Stadium.
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