Tigers top Mountain Hawks

It took just 70 seconds for the Lehigh field hockey team to realize it was in over its head. Facing a Tiger team (8-4 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) that had beaten it seven straight times, including a 9-1 drubbing when they last met in 1993, the Mountain Hawks (7-6) all but surrendered. Barely a minute into the game, their defense essentially stood and watched as Princeton scored, setting the tone for the Tigers' eventual 4-2 victory.

The Mountain Hawks white flag was prompted by junior attack Katie Kinzer's pass across the middle to junior defender Holly McGarvie, who easily scored to give her team a very early first goal.

"[Scoring so early] builds our emotion and our momentum, and at the same time lets them know we're here and we're not going to wait or give them a chance," junior midfielder Candice Arner said.

Head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn said that her team had been hoping to take the lead right from the start.

"We wanted to start fast, which we did, so I was very pleased with that," Holmes-Winn said.

Holmes-Winn had even more to be pleased about as the game progressed. The Tigers gave up little in the way of scoring chances throughout the first half, and if a Mountain Hawk shot broke through, sophomore goalkeeper Cynthia Wray was there to stop it.

At the other end of the field, in the middle of the first half, sophomore attack Tina Bortz was busy dazzling the crowd with her stick-handling abilities. She dipsy-doodled around a defender, carried the ball along the circle and hammered in a long backhanded shot for her seventh goal of the season, bringing Princeton's lead to two.

A few minutes later, the Tigers found the back of the net a third time when sophomore midfielder Katherine Cape shot in a loose ball right in front of the cage. Lehigh goalkeeper Jessica Miller had no chance on the play after McGarvie had unintentionally bowled her over, but the goal was allowed to stand, and Princeton went into halftime with a 3-0 lead.

Despite the big lead, Arner said her team had no plans to sit back and take it easy the rest of the game.

"Our goal was to come out in the second half with just as much fire," Arner said. "There's no letting up at all."

Sure enough, it only took a little over five minutes for the Tigers to add to their lead. A big rebound left Bortz with the ball all alone in front, and she quickly wristed it into a wide-open net for an easy goal, her team-leading eighth of the season.

Leading 4-0, Princeton was understandably feeling good about its prospects, but the Mountain Hawks started showing signs of life late in the game and ensured that the Tigers had to fight for the win. Freshman goalkeeper Jennifer King, who had replaced Wray at halftime and saw very little action in the first 20 minutes of the half, let in a goal on a penalty corner with just under seven minutes remaining, and suddenly Princeton was struggling.

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"Structurally, the second half was abominable," Holmes-Winn said, referring to the Tiger defense's sudden, inexplicable inability to fight off the Lehigh attack as it previously had.

The Mountain Hawks, desperately trying to make up for their early meltdown, continued to pressure Princeton and added another score with just under two minutes left. It ended up being too little, too late, and the Tigers escaped with a 4-2 win.

Though Lehigh threatened late, Bortz said that for most of the game her team's big lead allowed Princeton to work on various aspects of its game, including different styles of presses, positioning and causing fewer fouls.

With the lead, most of the team also saw playing time. "[Everyone playing] helps everyone be more cohesive in the field," Bortz said. "It gives everyone a chance to shine."

Late-game near-collapses aside, the Tigers soundly beat their opponent and look ready to shine on when they face Harvard (7-5, 3-1) on Saturday.

As both teams stand at the top of the league with one loss, the outcome could determine the 2007 Ivy League championship.