Women's Lacrosse: No. 2 Maryland too much for erratic Tigers

The Tigers (13-3, 6-1 Ivy League) had fought hard to close the gap on a five-point deficit and bring the game to 7-5 in less than three minutes before ultimately falling to the Terps 20-12. The comeback was fueled largely by the power of senior midfielder and co-captain Holly McGarvie, who got the run started with an unassisted goal at five minutes, 52 seconds. Not only did the goal break up the flow of the Terrapins’ seemingly unstoppable offense — which had scored five straight unanswered goals — but it also gave the Tigers some much-needed momentum. Junior attack Kristin Morrison capitalized on that momentum just 38 seconds later by firing a shot into the back of the net off an assist by McGarvie. McGarvie wasn’t finished yet, however, and she seemed ready to single-handedly pull off the win when she scored again at 3:14 to close the deficit to two points.

“They came out quick with two quick goals,” McGarvie said. “We got into our groove about 10 minutes into the game, and then it went from a 7-2 game to a 7-5 [game]. It is about being confident, and, once we got into our groove, it was really easy to put balls into the goal.”

Unfortunately for fans of the Orange and Black, that is as close as Princeton would get to toppling the giant, as Maryland’s potent attack proved too much for the Tigers to handle. Though the The 20-12 loss, however, was largely a result of Princeton’s defensive miscues and missed opportunities on offense. While the Tigers managed two more goals before the half ended, again thanks to the efforts of the hardworking McGarvie, who assisted sophomore midfielder Lizzy Drumm, it simply was not enough.

“We would have liked to score more,” McGarvie said. “They have a very strong attack, with multiple girls with over 30 goals, and, unfortunately, it wasn’t our best defensive game. It was just an off game for us. Twenty goals is an amount you don’t want to be letting into the cage.”

Though the game was fairly tight by the end of the first half, with Princeton trailing 9-6, Maryland took control of the game in the second half. The Terps came out of the gates hard after the break and kept the back of the Tigers’ defense busy, taking a 13-6 lead with 20:43 remaining. Caitlyn McFadden, whom Princeton’s defense proved powerless to stop, led the Terps with four goals and took seven shots in the game.

“After halftime, we got kind of flat again,” senior midfielder and co-captain Kristin Schwab said. “I think we knew that possession was going to be a really important part of the game, so we were a little conservative and became stagnant. We weren’t attacking as we normally do because we were so worried about keeping possession.”

It wasn’t until 12 minutes into the second half that the Tigers managed to find the back of Maryland’s net off a quick shot by Morrison. Though Morrison scored again at 16:41, the poor performance by both the defense and the offense failed to help fend off the Terps’ aggressive attacks, as they went on to score four unanswered goals and ultimately put the ball in the cage 11 times by the end of the half. One problem that consistently plagued Princeton was the inaccuracy of its shots, which hit the back of the net less than half of the time.

“None of us really played our best game,” Schwab said. “None of us played the way we can play. For all of us, this is definitely disappointing. There were a lot of mistakes we had that are fixable, and now, looking forward and going into the tournament, we are realizing we need to change a few things. I definitely think that if we do that we can go very far.”

The Tigers made a tremendous effort at the end of the game, scoring three goals in the final four minutes of play, but it was simply too little too late. In addition to out-shooting Princeton 29-26, Maryland also earned more ground balls, registered more saves and had a better clearing percentage.