As the weather on Saturday slowly improved, the quality of the play from the women's lacrosse team followed suit. Although the Tigers' lethargic start mirrored the bleak conditions, Princeton (9-0 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) managed to overcome its sloppy play and record a 16-10 home win over Cornell (1-7, 0-2), extending the team's 18-game winning streak in the process.
A casual inspection of both team's records and statistics should have presaged a one-sided contest. The game pitted the unanimous No. 1-ranked Tigers against a squad that has been unranked in the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll since the second week of the season. Additionally, Princeton has established a record of dominating the Big Red by triumphing in the teams' last 17 meetings. However, Cornell surprised fans and players alike as it valiantly persisted through most of the sixty minutes of play. It prevented Princeton from ever running away with the game and accomplished something that only one other team has managed during the Tigers' current winning streak — score 10 goals in a game.
The Big Red captured the early momentum and dictated the game's first few minutes. Their intensity was rewarded with the first goal of the game at six minutes, one second. Princeton rattled off the next four goals in only six minutes, each courtesy of a different Tiger player, but Cornell clawed its way back into contention. The Big Red outscored Princeton in the last fifteen minutes of the first half, tacking on five goals to the Tigers' three, to cut the halftime deficit to 7-6. Although Princeton had opportunities offensively to increase its lead, the team's passes were not crisp, and they failed to function as a cohesive unit. Defensively, Cornell's size gave them an uncontested advantage in the red-carpet area in front of the net.
"We knew we had to make some significant changes in the second half in terms of our intensity and defensively in terms of pressuring the ball," head coach Chris Sailer said.
The Tigers' first half play differed drastically from the polished performance expected of the two-time defending national champions.
"We were being way too complacent," freshman midfielder Kathleen Miller said. "Overall, we just needed to step it up in general. We weren't playing; we hadn't shown up until the second half. And our coach definitely let us know that at halftime."
After trading goals with the Big Red less than a minute apart to open the second half, Princeton went on its second four-goal run of the game.
Miller started the offensive surge at 2:26 with a rocket shot from the right side of the crease. Junior attack Lindsey Biles built the Tigers' lead to three on a free-position shot at 7:02. Her second and third goals came just under four minutes apart on virtually identical goals. In each case, Biles collected a feed from senior attack Tara Hardiman from behind the crease and batted it into the net over Cornell goalie Maggie Fava's right shoulder.
Although the Big Red's Lyndsay Robinson beat Princeton's junior goalie Sarah Kolodner with a bounce shot down low with 13:22 left to cut the lead to 12-8, Miller, the game's scoring leader, responded for the Tigers with the insurance they had so eagerly anticipated. Miller forcefully pushed her way to the net and drew fouls from a Cornell defense that could not determine another way to halt her powerful advance.
"In the last couple of games, I've been kind of quiet," Miller said, "and my coaches say that I need to get more of an aggressive step. I went out there and just stepped it up."
The final two of her season-high five goals came from free-position shots and pushed Princeton in front by six goals.
After vanquishing all of the top-ranked competition early in the season, the challenge for the Tigers is to maintain that level of intensity while playing their less threatening Ivy League opponents.
"We still haven't gotten to the point where we're the best that we could possibly be," Miller said, "so we need to keep getting better, trying harder and playing hard the entire game."
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