Final Eu-Four-ia

While countless Americans spent the Friday after Thanksgiving doling out exorbitant sums of paper, metal and plastic money in preparation for the holiday season, the women's soccer team used a less tangible sort of currency — namely, cohesiveness on both sides of the ball — to buy themselves a trip to the Final Four.

In defeating the University of Washington Huskies, 3-1, in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament, the Tigers secured a place for themselves in history, becoming the first Ivy League women's soccer squad to advance this far in the postseason.

"We're really excited that we can represent the Ivy League," senior defender Brea Griffiths said, "and that the country now has to recognize us as a successful program."

Princeton will play UCLA, a 1-0 winner over Ohio State on Saturday, in the semifinals next Friday in Cary, N.C.

Coming into the game, neither Princeton nor Washington had allowed a goal in the first three games of tournament play. Both squads were also led on offense by two-time defending Players of the Year in their respective leagues, with senior forward Esmeralda Negron twice winning the Ivy League honor for Princeton and Tina Frimpong doing likewise for Washington in the Pacific 10 Conference.

Scoreless streaks broken

While the two stars would shine throughout the course of the night, by halftime both squads had given up their first goals of the tournament and, with the game knotted at one, all bets were off going into the second half.

Princeton proved to be the more resilient offensive unit early in the second half, when a persistently aggressive attack yielded two goals before the 56th minute had ended.

Second-half surge

The second-half scoring began in the 51st minute, with a textbook give-and-go play that would have made any soccer purist beam with delight. Appropriately, the two players hooking up on the play were Princeton's most reliable offensive options all season — Negron and junior forward Emily Behncke — each of whom would contribute a goal and an assist to the winning effort.

Dribbling in the center of the field just outside the Washington goal box, Negron spotted Behncke on her left and innocently transferred the ball to her teammate. With the Husky defense closing in on Behncke, Negron inched closer to the right side of the goal. There, Behncke found her with a solid pass, and just one disoriented defender later, Negron blasted the ball into the right corner of the net to give Princeton the lead.

By no means content to rest on its one-goal lead, the Princeton offense continued to push into the offensive third in the minutes immediately following the goal.

With the opposing defense homing in on both Behncke and Negron, it would once again be the passing of the team's stars, coupled with the fine off-the-ball movement of the other Tigers, that would yield another scoring opportunity soon thereafter.

No doubt giving her opponents a bad case of déjà vu, Negron soon found herself with the ball in the very same position she had been in when she netted her goal just minutes earlier. This time, though, the Huskies quickly cut off any angle which would have allowed her to get off a clean shot. Negron turned and saw senior midfielder Kristina Fontanez wide open in front of the goal and executed a flawless crossing pass that Fontanez was able to redirect into the right side of the net, giving the Tigers a two-goal lead that would end up sticking.

The goal by Fontanez was the team's 58th of the season, eclipsing a school record. More importantly, though, it seemed to suck most of the life out of a Washington team that had traveled over 11,000 miles during the tournament.

For the rest of the night, Princeton was able to hold the Huskies to one shot, which came on a last-ditch, breakaway effort by Frimpong with 16 seconds remaining in the game.

"At the half we adjusted by coming out and pressuring hard up top and in the midfield," Griffiths said. "This way they couldn't even get out of their half."

Until that point, the jet lag did not seem to have any ill effects on the Washington players. The Huskies' offensive attack, as lightning-quick as it was physical, managed to get off 10 shots against the Princeton defense — one more than the combined total mustered by the Tigers' opponents in the first three games.

With her team down a goal in the 32nd minute, Frimpong, Washington's star forward, embodied both the speed and strength of her team's offense on a scoring drive that left the standing-room only crowd of 2,504 at Lourie-Love Field (seating capacity 1,500) feeling a mixture of anger and awe.

Frimpong took a pass from teammate Nikki Gamble and began racing toward the goal, half a step ahead of the two Princeton defenders on either side of her. As she neared junior goalie Emily Vogelzang, who was moving out away from the goal, Princeton senior defender Elizabeth Pillion went down, and it was unclear whether she had slipped or if she had been pushed. Frimpong continued to attack the goal, dribbled around the encroaching Vogelzang, and knocked the ball into the wide open net.

Frimpong's goal ended a 20-minute period during which the Tigers had held a 1-0 lead thanks to a goal scored by Behncke very early in the first half.

Scoring first

In the 10th minute, Princeton had capitalized on what was the first real scoring opportunity of the game for either team. Freshman midfielder Diana Matheson chipped the ball ahead of the field to Behncke, who, standing directly in front of the goal, let loose a low liner that careened off the Husky goalie into the back of the net.

Although the first half ended in a 1-1 tie, the tempo established by both the Princeton offense and defense in the first 45 minutes set the table for the scoring blitz early in the second half that clinched the victory.

Defense answers challenge

Up against what was easily their greatest challenge of the tournament, the Princeton defense responded to the Husky forwards' breakaway pushes towards the goal by playing as aggressively as they have played all season — unleashing powerful slide tackles and sticking to Washington ballhandlers as closely as possible.

Just 11 seconds after Behncke opened the scoring, Vogelzang provided her defense with an example of what it would need to do the whole game. Washington forward Katy Dowling snuck past the Princeton defense on a breakaway, but, having moved deep into the goal box, she was met by Vogelzang, who slid forward to take away her shot.

While no save was awarded on the play, the four saves Vogelzang would make on the evening doubled the total number that she and fellow junior goalie Madeleine Jackson had to make in the first three games of the tournament.

Soon thereafter, Pillion followed suit, matching Frimpong step-for-step as she darted upfield. Then, advancing just far enough ahead of Frimpong that she could go in for a slide tackle, Pillion knocked the ball out of danger and took the Husky down without a call.

"Out of all the players we have faced all season," senior midfielder Catherine Byrd said of Frimpong, "she was probably the fastest, strongest and the best with the ball. [Pillion] man-marked her and did a great job. Everyone else's job was to pressure the heck out of the other players to prevent them from finding Frimpong and getting her the ball."

The Princeton offense, meanwhile, continuously tested the vaunted Washington defense throughout the first half, a strategy that likely led to their cracking early in the second half. The unit established early in the game that its strategy would be to make the extra pass and keep opposing defenders on the run.

In the end, that was the difference. Princeton's quick, precise interior passing in the offensive zone kept the Husky defense almost entirely on its heels in the second half. The obvious chemistry between Negron, Behncke, Matheson and the rest of the midfield was on full display — an utter treat for the 2000-plus who braved the blustery cold. Even with two second-half scores and a comfortable lead, the offense was continuously dangerous in front of the Washington net and could easily have netted several more goals.

Assuming that the second-half magic accompanies the team on its trip to North Carolina, Thanksgiving might just last another week at Old Nassau.