W. soccer continues its domination

The horn blew, calling for a substitution. A look at the clock showed there to be six minutes, one second remaining in the first half. And junior defender Romy Trigg-Smith, who has played every second of every game this season, jogged off the field.

Why?

A quick glance at the scoreboard told the story. Princeton 3. Penn 0.

Women's soccer's record book continues to be rewritten. On Saturday, the No. 12 Tigers (15-2 overall, 7-0 Ivy League) broke the record for most wins in a season (15) with a 4-1 win over the Quakers (9-6-2, 4-2-1) on Lourie-Love field. Going into the game already holding several school records, this season's team became the first Princeton squad to go undefeated in Ivy play and the fourth team in Ivy League women's soccer history to do so.

Senior forward Esmeralda Negron — already holding records for goals in a season, points in a season and points in career — claimed her 42nd, 43rd and 44th goals of her career during the game to become the most prolific scorer in Princeton history. Negron topped the previous records from both the men's and women's programs.

A ket part of the Tiger gameplan hinged upon shutting down Penn's Katie Cross. Like Negron, Cross is a senior who holds virtually every record at her school. She is first in career points, career goals, career assists, season goals and season points. Cross is also second to Negron in points, goals and assists in the Ivy League. This game, however, Cross went scoreless and was unable to get a single shot off. The reason: senior defender Elizabeth Pillion.

"We had Elizabeth Pillion stay on her," junior midfielder Maija Garnaas said. "That definitely frustrated her. She's kind of their main goto player, and with her out, they didn't have anything in the way of an outlet."

But shutting down one player is not what wins a game, and the Tiger offense didn't waste time in doing their part. The first goal came after Trigg-Smith booted the ball into the air upfield. Penn goalie Anna Halse came out of the box to try and catch it, but the ball went through her hands as if it were coated with grease. Running up behind the goalie, Negron trapped it neatly down and oh-so-nonchalantly passed it into the goal, at which time the heavy crowd of fans there for Senior Night, who were carefully holding their breaths, erupted into cheers when it was announced that Negron had just broken the career goal record.

The next goal was also a special one for the Tigers. Negron and Trigg-Smith teamed up again, but Trigg-Smith was the scorer this time while Negron assisted. With 17:01 to go, Trigg-Smith planted her head on the ball off a pass from Negron, propelling it right over the head of the Quaker goalie, extending the lead to 2-0 and giving Trigg-Smith her first goal of the season.

A minute later, Negron struck again. This time, a pass from Brea Griffiths found her foot and she had no trouble emptying it into the net.

This last goal prompted a Quaker huddle in the middle of the field, after which Penn made a mad dash to the goal that ended in a shot by Snyder that went wide but left Princeton fans a little more nervous than they cared to admit. This was the Quakers' first shot of the game and only shot of the first half.

Perhaps prompted by seeing three goals go by in a 15-minute span, Penn's coach also took this time to replace Anna Halse with Jessica Keeley in the keeper box. Halse would not come back into the game.

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After building the 3-0 lead, the Tigers were able to concentrate on containing Cross and keeping pressure on Penn's defense without the stress or sense of urgency the Quaker offense found itself facing. Princeton's shots all went high or were saved by Keeley, but each miss was accompanied by jocular calls for "next time!" from the fans rather than disappointment.

That 'next time' came sooner rather than later when Negron flushed out her hat trick with less than four minutes to go in the half. Taking the keeper on one-on-one, Negron forced Keeley to commit and dive for the ball. Negron paused her forward momentum and passed the ball in the air over the keeper's left shoulder.

"It's always a focus of ours to start out scoring first," freshman midfielder Diana Matheson said. "Lately, we've been getting better at quickly putting teams down early."

The Quakers finally got on the board with 26:30 to go when Rachelle Snyder hammered one in off a pass from Devon Sibole.

After that, Princeton's defense clamped down, and Penn would only see two more shots the rest of the game. The 4-1 victory handed the Tigers a perfect 7-0 Ivy League record going into their sixth consecutive NCAA tournament. The draw for the tournament will be announced on ESPNews at 4:30 on Monday. Princeton has never won a championship, but the one certainty coming out of Saturday's game is that nothing is set in stone.