Women's Lacrosse: Bulldogs come to town for Ancient Eight battle

Yale is fresh off a big 17-13 win over Harvard last weekend in New Haven, Conn., while Princeton is on a two game losing streak that began with a loss to Temple last Wednesday. The Tigers have struggled all season to string wins together, but junior goalie Erin Tochihara said the women are not worried about streaks.

“We’re really just taking it one day at a time,” Tochihara said.

Despite the two losses in a row, head coach Chris Sailer said the women are not discouraged.

“The team is really pretty good at putting the past behind and focusing on the present,” she said.

Though Princeton leads the all-time series with Yale 21-14-1, the Bulldogs should be a tough squad. They beat then-No. 13 Boston University on the road 11-9, and they lost a close game to the defending Ivy League champions, No. 6 Penn. Sailer is well aware of the potential threat Yale poses. “Every Ivy game for every team is a big game. The league is very competitive,” she said.

One of the biggest threats comes from Yale midfielder Devon Rhodes, who was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week last week after scoring a total of 10 goals in two games. She scored eight goals against Harvard and leads the team in goals, points and draw controls.

Sailer insisted that despite the attention Rhodes has been garnering with her recent performance, she wants her players to focus on playing their best games rather than worrying about another player.

“We spent the week focusing more on us than on Yale,” Sailer said.

Either way, stopping the Bulldogs’ offense will be a primary concern. “We have to play individual and team defense against Yale,” Sailer said.

In the loss to Cornell, the score was nearly even toward the end of the game, but Cornell went on a 5-1 run to cement its victory. The Bulldogs distanced themselves from Harvard by scoring nine unanswered goals.

“Lacrosse is a game of momentum. It’s not unusual for a team to get a run,” Sailer explained. “We want to be able to respond and not give up runs of those kind.”

In preparation for the game, the Tigers have been practicing the fundamentals of the game.

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“We’re really just trying to get back to basics,” Sailer said.

Tochihara echoed Sailer’s sentiments that improvement needs to come from within the team after its recent struggles.

“Looking back at those games, it wasn’t one end of the field or the other that lost the game for us — it was a bunch of things,” Tochihara said.

Both Tochihara and Sailer emphasized the importance of learning from the past and but looking forward to the rest of the season. “We can use the past as a little bit of a motivation,” Sailer said, “but our season is still out in front of us.”

Since only four teams make the Ivy League tournament at the end of the season, every Ivy League game is very important. “Every Ivy game from this point on is crucial,” Tochihara said.

Especially after their loss to Cornell, the Tigers will need to make the most of the four remaining Ivy League matches to ensure a spot in the Ivy League tournament.

Princeton has sharpened its focus and had a productive week of competitive practices, Tochihara said.

The Tigers hope that this competitiveness during practice will translate to a strong showing against Yale on Saturday afternoon.

“We’re just excited to go back out there and hopefully get back on the horse and turn it all around,” Tochihara said. The Tigers play Yale at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Princeton Stadium.