Late run advances Princeton

Though Princeton (13-4 overall) outshot Vanderbilt (13-6), 31-17, for the win, the score was much closer, as the two teams were tied seven times during the match. The last time the Tigers played the Commodores, they scored a definitive 11-3 win, but this year, things weren’t so easy.

Though Princeton lit up the board early in the match with a goal by freshman midfielder Lizzy Drumm at 24 minutes, 52 seconds, Vanderbilt quickly struck back with a goal of its own just a few seconds later. Princeton won the ensuing draw and started cycling around in the crease, carefully controlling the ball and waiting for the opportunity to strike. An increasingly frustrated defense came at Princeton’s offense a little too aggressively, fouling junior midfielder Holly McGarvie and giving her the chance to score off a free-position shot at 22:17.

After that, the game slowed down, as both teams committed a number of turnovers. Senior midfielder Katie Lewis-Lamonica, playing for the first time since tearing her ACL in the beginning of April, got the game going, however, when she ran down the right wing scored at the 14:57 mark to give the Tigers a 3-1 lead. But Vanderbilt refused to go down without a fight and scored twice in less than two minutes to tie up the game at three.

Though Princeton controlled the ball in the Commodores’ area for the next few minutes, it could not get around Vanderbilt goalie Brooke Shinaberry, whose gutsy moves away from the goal saved her team more than once. Even after junior attack Christine Casaceli managed to find the back of the net at 10:17, the Tigers’ lead was quickly stripped away after Vanderbilt answered Princeton’s goal with two of its own.

Determined to gain some momentum going into the second half, Princeton bombarded the Commodores’ goal. Though the Tigers made some questionable shots, junior attack Sarah Steele finally scored for Princeton when she took a pass from senior attack and co-captain Ashley Amo and rifled the ball in at 4:26. Though Amo gave Princeton a 6-5 lead at 2:37 with a high, forceful shot to the goal, once again Vanderbilt retaliated with its own goal, ending the half tied at six.

“I think we came out a little bit nervous in the first half, and it just took us a while to find our groove,” head coach Chris Sailer said. “I think after halftime we knew that this was a game that we could break open if we just played like we normally play.”

Vanderbilt hit the field with a vengeance heading into the second half, with Commodore Cara Giordano scoring off a free-position shot at 28:57, her third goal of the match.

As the game wore on and neither team took a definite lead, the players’ intensity and aggressiveness clearly increased. Though Vanderbilt committed just 11 fouls in the first period, that number nearly doubled in the second half, with the Commodores making 20 fouls in comparison to the Tigers’ six during the third period.

“We got a lot of walking wounded,” Sailer said. “It took us a while to adapt to that, but then you see different people stepping up like Sarah Steele, who is a kid who didn’t play very much at all in the beginning of the year.”

Perhaps Shinaberry should have considered her team’s tendency to foul before making the decision to leave the goal empty in favor of chasing after a ball. Shinaberry was caught in a sticky situation when her team was called for a foul in the Commodores’ area, and she was frozen behind McGarvie, who was taking the free-position shot. McGarvie passed to Amo, who scored easily on the empty net, yet again tying up the game, this time at seven, at 25:14. A goal by junior midfielder Kristin Schwab, followed almost immediately by a goal from Vanderbilt, brought the game to eight-all with neither team appearing capable of keeping the lead for very long.

Steele, who entered the game with just three goals this season, soon changed that, with a free-position shot that put the Tigers in the lead for good at 14:08. Sophomore attack Kristin Morrison found the back of the net just a few minutes later to give Princeton its first two-point lead. In spite of a goal by Vanderbilt’s Giordano at 8:36, the Tigers were on fire for the final minutes of the match, keeping the Commodores’ goal hot with four unanswered tallies.

“In the beginning our game was a little shaky,” Amo said. “But then we got back into our comfort zone and started setting Steele up for some one-on-ones. We were just trying to play to our strengths.”

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Though Vanderbilt managed to find the back of the net once more with seven seconds left on the clock, it was already a clear victory for the Tigers. It only gets more difficult for Princeton, however, who moves on to face No. 1 Northwestern next Saturday.