Women's Lacrosse: Woes continue as Princeton loses to Harvard for first time in 18 years

The Tigers (5-8, 3-2) tried to fight back from a five-goal deficit but were unable to complete the comeback despite scoring four of the last five goals of the game. Senior tri-captain and attacker Kristin Morrison and sophomore midfielder Cassie Pyle each scored three goals to lead the Tigers, but their contributions were not enough.

“Cassie has become more of an offensive threat for us,” head coach Chris Sailer said. “Mo [Morrison] had some good eight-meter shots, and she’s a powerful player and can really turn it on.”

“My teammates created many opportunities for me, which allowed me to get shots off on cage,” Morrison said.

The Tigers kept the game close early on, but as has happened in many of Princeton’s games this year, its opponents took control, this time with a four-goal run in the first half. A goal by junior midfielder Maisie Devine lessened the first-half deficit to 6-3, but the Tigers could not mount a strong enough comeback until too late.

“[At the end of the game], we played with a lot more urgency and found some opportunities late in the game,” Sailer said. “We needed to play with more of that from the start.”

“We had a powerful surge of energy and excitement on the field at the end of the game, but it’s simply not enough to only bring that in the final four minutes,” Morrison added. “We need to bring our all for a full 60 minutes, or we will not get the outcome we want.”

Several of Princeton’s opponents have taken over games with runs of consecutive goals that put the team on the wrong side of a growing deficit. Sailer pointed to a number of different factors for these runs and said that there is not one specific thing to be fixed.

“It was a combination of errors and missed opportunities,” she said.

The Crimson had its own duo of hat tricks from attacker Jen VanderMeulen and midfielder Melanie Baskind. Harvard scored almost all of its goals without teammate help, as it notched just one assist.

“They took it hard to the cage, and we were late on a lot of our slides,” Sailer noted. “Often, they went right through us.”

The Tigers have had an issue this season with shot accuracy and selection. Princeton and Harvard took 27 and 26 shots, respectively. The Crimson, however, had 23 shots on goal, while the Tigers only managed 16. In addition, the Tigers had 11 free position opportunities but only scored on three of them.

“We created great opportunities for ourselves, but we just didn’t finish,” Sailer said. “In the first half, we were trying to pick corners too much. I told them to just put it between the pipes. Other times, people rushed and didn’t take the time needed. We have to learn better to mix up our shots.”

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“On Saturday, we shot for the corners and missed by inches,” Morrison added. “As Coach said, we just need to look to get the ball in between the pipes.”

Junior goalie Erin Tochihara made 12 saves compared to Harvard’s seven, but because of the discrepancy in shots on goal, she and the rest of the Tigers came away with the loss.

Sailer also noted the physicality and high number of fouls called in the game. Harvard netted 28 and Princeton tallied 29 fouls.

“It was a tough game because the officiating was so tight,” Sailer said. “They called a ton of fouls on both teams.”

Before Saturday afternoon, Princeton had not lost to Harvard since 1992, but history has not been very kind to the Tigers this season. The loss to the Crimson comes after the Tigers were beaten earlier this year by Rutgers, Cornell and Temple, three teams they have dominated in recent years.

Since a signature victory over then-No. 9 Georgetown in double-overtime earlier this year, the Tigers have lost four of five games. Despite this late-season slide, the Tigers remain in a position to make the Ivy League tournament if they win one of their next two games against league powers Penn and Dartmouth.

“We never wanted to be in the position that we are, but that’s the way things panned out,” Morrison said. “This is a huge week for us. We can’t wait to get back out on the field and bring everything that we have versus Penn and Dartmouth.”