Women's soccer draws 0-0 with Brown

The women’s soccer team, often blessed with lucky last-minute opportunities this season, was poised to pull off another heart-stopping win in the closing moments of Saturday afternoon’s game against Brown.

In the final minutes of regulation, freshman forward Kalie Bartholomew sprinted onto a through ball from freshman midfielder Sara Chehrehsa, left a Brown defender in the dust and lasered a shot toward the far post, inciting a cheer from the crowd.

The ping of the ball striking the post silenced the roar, however, and the ball spiraled away from the goal.

Luck once again did not favor the Tigers in overtime, when senior midfielder Sarah Peteraf collected the ball at the top of the 18-yard box, maneuvered around her defender and let loose a rocket of a shot that careened off the crossbar.

Sophomore midfielder Bernie Da Costa also tallied a shot in overtime, and Bartholomew found herself alone against Brown goalkeeper Brenna Hogue, but the Tigers couldn’t find the back of the net and were forced to settle for a scoreless draw after two overtimes.

“I thought we did enough to win,” head coach Julie Shackford said. “We had our chances, but we just didn’t execute. Maybe we were a little unlucky, but that’s something we’re going to have to work on.”

Brown (4-4-4 overall, 1-1-1 Ivy League) had the Tigers (7-1-2, 2-0-1) on their heels in the first half, earning a 6-1 advantage in shots. Princeton’s back line stood its ground, though. Junior defender and tri-captain Melissa Seitz and senior defender Taylor Numann anchored the defense from the center, constantly tracking down the Bears’ attackers and clearing the ball out of danger. Da Costa and sophomore defender Marissa Sampias also played solid games on the outside, consistently beating their attackers to the ball and pushing up on the flanks to create offensive opportunities.

Princeton came alive on offense in the second half, though, tallying eight shots and limiting Brown to one.

“We spent most of our halftime challenging our forwards to make a difference in the second half,” Shackford said. “We asked them to stay higher because I thought they had been checking back too deep into the midfield, and we weren’t able to stretch [Brown’s] defense at all. [In the second half], they did a better job of staying high and stretching the defense, and then we got dangerous.”

One of Princeton’s best chances to score came in the 78th minute, when senior defender and tri-captain Lisa Chinn crossed a beautiful ball into the box to senior midfielder and tri-captain Jen Om. Om deflected the ball toward the net, but Hogue was there to scoop it up. The Tigers created plenty of opportunities in the waning minutes of the second half and in both overtime periods, but a win just wasn’t in the cards this weekend.

While the Tigers may have been disappointed to come away with a tie after dominating the majority of the game, this game extends their shutout streak to more than 600 minutes.

“We came out here with the attitude of seeing ourselves as the underdogs,” Seitz said. “I think we played well. It was very frustrating not to score, but the positive aspect of it was not giving up a goal. Overall, we battled really hard but couldn’t get the goal to win it.”

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Sophomore goalkeeper Alyssa Pont was determined to preserve the scoreless stretch, as she protected her net throughout the game and met every challenge that came her way in overtime.

“[Our attitude in overtime] was not defensive at all,” Pont said. “It was never an option that we would get scored on.”

The draw puts Princeton into a three-way tie with Columbia and Penn for the Ivy League lead. As the Tigers prepare to face non-conference Lehigh on Wednesday and the Lions next weekend, they will have to hope the luck they’ve had wrapping up opponents at the end of games returns to bolster the stalwart defense they have played all season. If so, the Tigers could be looking at their first Ivy League championship since 2004.