McGarvie's four enough to edge Johns Hopkins

Junior midfield Holly McGarvie contributed four of the Tigers’ seven goals on Saturday, and she was not the only familiar face as Hopkins lost its second consecutive battle with the Tigers. Nine of last year’s 12 starters are returning this year, and the team has not lost a beat.

The first half saw a flurry of scoring, as the Tigers could not shut down the Blue Jays’ offense until midway through the second half. McGarvie put up the first point of the game after two minutes, 14 seconds of play, but Hopkins tied it up after five more minutes of play.

Junior attack Christine Casaceli gave the Tigers back the lead with a free-position goal after another minute of play, but after two more minutes the score was tied 2-2. Thirty seconds later, McGarvie put away her second goal and gave Princeton another lead, but Hopkins bounced back to tie the game again after a few more minutes of play when Blue Jay defender Katie Dumais took the ball from midfield all the way to the cage for her second career goal. Senior midfield Katie Lewis-Lamonica scored the next goal for the Tigers, and a third goal from McGarvie gave the Tigers a 5-4 lead heading into halftime.

Locker-room strategizing led to 11 goalless minutes to start off the second half, after which Hopkins struck first with Kadie Stamper tying the game at five. The Tigers withstood the Hopkins pressure from there.

“Our problem in the second half was settling into a rhythm on attack, so it put a lot of pressure on our defense to make big plays,” McGarvie said. “After they tied the score, our team did not freak out, we just knew we needed to step up our play in the offensive end.”

Junior midfield Kristin Schwab gave the Tigers a 6-5 lead after a Hopkins foul gave her an eight-meter attempt with 18 minutes left to play. McGarvie scored the final goal of the game with 5:25 remaining, giving the Tigers a 7-5 advantage — their greatest margin of the game and the lead they would hold until the end.

“At that point we were up by two goals and needed to maintain possession and finish the game,” McGarvie said. “Our team really performed at the end of the game.”

Despite the Blue Jays outshooting the Tigers 15-6 in the second half and 24-15 overall, they only managed two goals in the last 40 minutes of play and were scoreless in the final 19 minutes. Hopkins also failed to convert any of its five free-position shots, while the Tigers scored on both of theirs.

“The team played really well on defense,” McGarvie said. “Even though most of the second half was spent in our defensive end, we continued to communicate and play together.”