Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006: The field hockey team steamrolls Cornell, 6-0, as then-sophomore defender Holly McGarvie ties a Princeton record for points in a game with four goals and an assist for a total of nine points. The win is the Tigers' 14th straight over the Big Red.
Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007: Cornell scores on a penalty corner with 21 seconds left in regulation to edge Princeton, 4-3, stunning the crowd at Class of 1952 Stadium and breaking the Tigers' 17-game Ivy League winning streak in the process.
For much of the afternoon last Saturday, the game looked like it was going to be another log of victory to throw on Princeton's Ivy League championship fire. Little happened for the first 20 minutes or so, but the Tigers (5-4 overall, 3-1 Ivy League) soon started to take over. With more than eight minutes remaining in the half, junior midfield Sarah Reinprecht threw the ball toward the cage, and sophomore attack Tina Bortz was there to deflect it home and give Princeton the lead.
With just over a minute remaining before halftime, sophomore defender Kaitlyn Perrelle took a shot in front that was blocked, but McGarvie was there to pick up the rebound and lift it over the goaltender to bring the lead to two.
The Big Red (6-2, 3-1) must have had a particularly rousing halftime speech, because it came out to play the second half firing on all cylinders. Not even two minutes in, Cornell cut the lead in half on a penalty corner when sophomore goaltender Cynthia Wray was unable to control the rebound of the initial shot and consequently ended up with the ball behind her.
Fifteen minutes later, the Big Red did it again, this time on a shot from in front that snuck in past Wray. Cornell almost had another a minute later when Wray left the cage to challenge a shooter on a breakaway, but the shot sailed wide.
The Tigers called a timeout at that point to regroup, but three minutes later they found themselves down a goal, the result of a Big Red penalty corner. Several minutes passed as Princeton frantically tried to find the equalizer, which finally came with just over five minutes left, when McGarvie scored her second of the game on a big rebound in front, the culmination of several failed penalty corners in a row.
With one minute left, Wray made a game-saving stop on a breakaway, and the game appeared to be destined for overtime until Cornell was awarded a penalty corner with half a minute left. The inbounds pass came rolling in, and after a flurry of sticks, legs and ponytails, the ball was in the cage and the Big Red had completed its thrilling upset.
"I think we underestimated our opponent and didn't play together as a team for 70 minutes," sophomore midfield Kaitlin Donovan said. "Every Ivy League game is going to be very intense, and Cornell just wanted to win more than we did."
The next day, the Tigers hit the field determined to avenge their loss, and 1-8 Richmond was forced to suffer the full force of their fury. When all was said and done, Princeton had outshot the Spiders 26-6, outcornered them 15-1 and outscored them 5-1 to bounce back strongly from its heartbreaking loss the day before.
With freshman goalkeeper Jennifer King between the pipes in her first collegiate start, the Tigers wasted no time in giving her all the offensive support she would need and more. Donovan scored two goals in the first half eight minutes apart, and her teammates added two more to that in the opening minutes of the second, with Perrelle scoring on a deflection and junior midfield Candice Arner bouncing in a shot off a Richmond stick.
King surrendered a penalty stroke goal midway through the second half but otherwise made no mistakes in her first career win. Sophomore midfield Katherine Cape added another Princeton tally just for good measure in the closing minutes as the Tigers coasted to a 5-1 victory.
"This was a great game, but it is just one game," Donovan said. "We are really focused and ready to win the rest of our games and never underestimate another opponent."
No. 3 Connecticut comes to town Sunday for Princeton's only game this weekend.
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