Women's Soccer: Ivy dreams come true

Princeton (12-2-2 overall, 5-1-1 Ivy League) faced Penn (8-6-2, 2-3-3) in a rain-soaked matchup that had a bit of everything: flashes of superb technical soccer, pulse-raising near misses from the opposition, sterling senior leadership and a last-minute goal that left the crowd in a state of near euphoria. The result was a 2-1 win in double overtime over the Tigers’ border-state rival that gave the team a share of the Ivy League title and increased its chances of earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

The hero in this performance was a player who has often been overshadowed by her more offensive-minded teammates. With five minutes left in the second overtime, senior middle back Taylor Numann headed a cross from senior midfielder Sarah Peteraf into the net for her second goal of the game.

“I can’t even describe. We’ve worked so hard all season, especially for our seniors, I think it was so appropriate that we all got a hand in the goals that we’ve scored,” Numann said. “We’ve worked so hard. It’s been a really long four years to get here. It means so much to us to have the Ivy League title.”

This season, Numann has anchored a Princeton defense that has allowed only seven goals, content to let her teammates get the recognition that comes from scoring game-winning goals.

“She’s come up on corners the whole year long and hasn’t scored,” head coach Julie Shackford said. “How fitting is it that she comes up tonight and scores on two set pieces.”

Numann provided a preview of what was to come in the 27th minute, when senior midfielder Jen Om played a free kick into the middle of the 18-yard box where Numann, pushing up from her position, out-jumped the entire Quaker defense and headed the ball into the net for her first goal of the season.

“It had been my goal all season long to score off a set piece,” Numann said. “It hadn’t happened yet, and [today] was my last shot.”

Numann’s goal, coming amidst a sea of Penn players, was appropriate for a first half in which nothing came easily for either team. Motivated by the game’s high stakes, neither team allowed a ball to go unchallenged. Whether the ball was inside the 18-yard box or in the middle of the field, it seemed that there was always a phantom leg sticking out to disrupt play.

While the gritty play did not lend itself to many scoring opportunities, the first half did not lack excitement. The teams waged a defensive battle in the middle of the field, with the number of fouls in the first half outnumbering the number of shots, 6-5. Fittingly, Numann’s shot was the only one from either team in the first 45 minutes.

“I thought we had the better of the first half, and they had the better of the rest of it. We scored on a few set pieces, and that was enough.” Shackford said. “We’re thrilled for the seniors and to be able to bring the program back to the level of success we’re used to experiencing.”

If the first half was a lesson in the finer points of grinding, defensive soccer, the second was an exposition on how high a team can raise its coach’s pulse while still pulling out a win. Any thoughts that the Tigers would fight their way to a sixth 1-0 win on the season were quickly dispelled when Penn midfielder Maggie Devitt got her foot on a corner kick in the 47th minute and pushed it past sophomore goalkeeper Aly Pont to knot the score at 1-1. From there, the Quaker offense continued to find its groove and peppered Pont with a barrage of challenging shots.

“All season long, we’ve been battling and fighting and working so hard, never giving up and never saying die,” Numann said. “I think that that mentality and attitude and heart and will has led us to where we are now. It’s much more the intangibles.”

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It would take all Princeton’s resilience to weather the storm of Penn offensive threats in the second half.

In the 63rd minute, the Quakers had their first opportunity to take the lead, when a scrum in front of the goal resulted in a shot from midfielder Natalie Capuano that would have hit the left post had it been any closer to the goal. The shot rolled just wide, and the Tigers could exhale momentarily.

It would be a short-lived respite, as Penn continued to raise the level of pressure on the Princeton defense. In the 68th minute, defenseman Michelle Drugan fired an unguarded shot directly at Pont, who ably made the save.

Then, with less than one minute remaining, Pont made the play that may have saved Princeton’s season. With a Quaker forward approaching from the left, Pont courageously left her line and punched the ball away before a shot could be taken.

During a season when the Tigers won half of their games by a one-goal margin, it was fitting that it would take more than 90 minutes of regulation for Princeton to capture the victory.

Penn nearly capitalized on a second corner in the 97th minute. With the ball inches from the goal line, junior middle back Melissa Seitz, holding her position on the far post, cleared the ball away from the net.

Yet just when it looked as if Princeton had exhausted all its energy rebuffing the Quaker offense, there was Peteraf, saving her best soccer for the most important minutes of the game as she has all season. This time, Peteraf assisted on the game-winning goal, sending a cross into the box that Numann met in stride to crush Penn’s chance of playing spoiler. All that was left was a team dog pile on a player whose season goal total had been amassed in the past 85 minutes.

“It’s a team that overachieved from the start,” Shackford said. “We exceeded our expectations, and tonight was a great battle.”

As the Tigers reflect on a year in which preseason expectations were left in the dust long ago, they will also be looking forward to a day not on the regular-season schedule. That day today, when the field of 64 will be announced for the NCAA tournament. While the Ivy League’s automatic bid for the tournament is going to Harvard, courtesy of the Crimson’s 2-1 win at Myslik Field two weeks ago, Numann’s heroics put Princeton in an excellent position to receive an at-large berth.

“I have no idea how they are going to view us. I know we did a good job with teams in the Northeast,” Shackford said. “At this point, it’s gravy. Again, I think this team overachieved in so many ways, worked really hard and did all the intangibles right. I have no clue [about the tournament]. I’m just happy to be in this position. We haven’t been here in four years.”

After a season built on endless hard work and a battling mentality, it’s a place the Tigers are happy to stay.