Women's Lacrosse: Duke deals Tigers heartbreaking loss

Though No. 8 Princeton (2-1 overall) seemed poised to take over the game after senior attack Sarah Steele converted the go-ahead goal, she was subsequently called for an illegal stick check, and the score remained knotted at 12. The tie didn’t last long, as the No. 4 Blue Devils (5-1) found the back of the net with one minute to go in the game and earned a 13-12 victory over the Tigers.

“With this being our third game of the season, we are still tweaking things both offensively and defensively, and I think Duke was able to take advantage of that,” senior midfielder and tri-captain Holly McGarvie said. “Our loss to Duke was a heartbreaker, and the team was disappointed to lose, but the level of play we did perform at gives us the confidence to keep working.”

The seesaw action wasn’t confined to the final minutes, but rather was a running theme throughout the contest: The game was tied five separate times, both teams had 3-0 scoring spurts and both collected 25 ground balls. Duke’s slight advantage can be attributed to its offense, which held a 33-26 lead in the shot column and won 17 draws to Princeton’s 10.

“In our game against Duke, the momentum swung in our favor and in theirs throughout the game,” McGarvie said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to finish on a few key positions, and they did. It is hard to be satisfied with a loss, but the team played with a lot of heart, hustle and skill.”

The Tigers came out of the gates hard, scoring three goals in the first seven minutes of play. Senior attack Christine Casaceli started Princeton’s hot streak when she crashed into the goal after picking up a feed from senior attack Anne Murray. Junior attack Kristin Morrison followed her lead with a free-position goal three minutes later. McGarvie netted a goal on an eight-meter shot to lift Princeton to 3-0 with 24:21 left on the clock.

The Blue Devils refused to go down without a fight and answered Princeton’s onslaught with a 5-0 run to build a two-point lead midway through the half. The game began its up-and-down trend with the Tigers’ tying the score at 8:04 after McGarvie tallied an unassisted goal to knot the match at five. Despite finding the back of the net twice more, Princeton entered the second half down 8-7 after Duke re-established a lead with two goals in 11 seconds and another shot made two minutes later.

Though the Blue Devils had a slight upper hand offensively in the first half, the Tigers seemed determined to regain momentum in the second, immediately tying the score at eight on a goal from sophomore attack Lizzy Drumm.

Both teams scored in the 27th minute to tie the match at nine. Duke’s attack fought back for the lead and mounted another 3-0 run. Princeton was determined to stay in the game and kept the match interesting by tying the score at 12 after getting three goals from three different players.

With just 3:41 left on the clock, each team fought to break the stalemate for good. Despite Princeton’s aggressive attack, it was the Blue Devils who grabbed the lead with one minute remaining. After that goal, Duke won the draw control, but senior defender and tri-captain Marie McKenna forced a turnover and picked up the ground ball. After successfully clearing the ball, the Tigers had only nine ticks left on the clock to redeem themselves. Unfortunately for the Orange and Black, that simply wasn’t enough time, and the buzzer sounded before an open shot was found.

“I think that we had a very strong performance against Duke,” Casaceli said. “We made big stops on the defense and executed well on our attack.”

The biggest stops on defense came from sophomore goalkeeper Erin Tochihara, who recorded 16 saves on the afternoon and was one of the biggest reasons the Tigers kept pace with the Blue Devils.

Princeton will have a week to recover from the loss before facing Penn State next weekend at home.