Women's Lacrosse: Chance to rebound against Dartmouth

Both teams currently have 4-1 records. The winner will take sole possession of second place in the Ivy League.

The Tigers (10-2 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) will seek to break from recent history, as the Big Green (7-4, 4-1) has won four of the last five meetings between the two teams, including its 13-12 victory last spring.

Last Saturday the Tigers soundly defeated Harvard 17-5. Princeton has not dropped a game against the Crimson since the NCAA tournament 17 years ago.

“On both ends of the field, we were patient in our play,” junior attack Kristin Morrison said. “On the attack end, we really worked the ball for the right opportunity. On the defensive end, we had strong slides and great double teams.”

Head coach Chris Sailer noted that she was quite happy with the lead her team built up in the first half of play.

“Obviously, we dominated from the start and never let them get into the game,” Sailer said. “A 12-0 halftime lead is a very big margin in lacrosse. Defensively, we held their top three scorers to zero points, and we seemed to intimidate their ball handlers with our aggressive and smart defensive play.”

Sailer commended several of her players for their outstanding efforts in the matchup.

“We controlled the draws the whole game, which really limited Harvard’s looks,” said Sailer. “Our entire team played well, but I would single out [senior midfielder] Kristen Schwab and Kristen Morrison on offense and [senior defender] Marie McKenna and [senior midfielder and tri-captain] Katie Cox on defense.”

But the team came up short against Penn on Wednesday. It was the Tiger’s second loss of the season after falling to Duke 13-12 in a close match on March 7.

“It really came down to possession time,” Cox said. “They had the ball on their attack for a significant portion of the game. Usually when we play attack, we get a lot of transition goals, and that didn’t happen in this game. That happens when you just don’t have the ball that much. It’s hard to establish momentum, [to] get into a rhythm on attack.”

The team had scored an average of 15 goals in each of its last five games before Wednesday night’s showdown, in which it scored only five.

The five-goal margin actually paints a rosier picture for Princeton than an account of what actually happened.

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In order to have success against the Big Green and to record a victory, Princeton will need production from its goal scorers, including senior midfielder and tri-captain Holly McGarvie, who has 22 goals on the season, and sophomore attack Lizzy Drumm, who has notched 26 goals thus far this year.

After the matchup against Dartmouth, the Tigers will face Brown on April 25 and Loyola on April 29, and will end the regular season with a matchup against Maryland in College Park on May 2. ??