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Field Hockey: Rookies team up to stop Princeton slide

Twice in the first six games of the field hockey team’s young season, freshman midfielder Sydney Kirby set up freshman striker Allison Evans to score. Twice on Saturday afternoon, Evans returned the favor. Those goals made the difference between a win and a fourth consecutive loss for the Tigers, who snapped their skid with a 3-2 victory over Yale at Class of 1952 Stadium.

“It’s such a relief,” Kirby said. “We had probably one of the hardest weeks, from what I know, in Tiger field hockey history — with all the running and training we did this week — so it’s really nice to have that gratification.”

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The Tigers, who have had trouble finding the back of the cage at times this season — they had converted only one of their previous 22 shot attempts entering the game — suffered the same flaw through a trickle of rain in the opening minutes. Princeton earned the game’s first penalty corner; sophomore back Amanda Bird attempted a solid shot, but Yale goalie Emily Cain blocked it in the air. Moments later, Cain turned away another strong and high attempt from Evans, preserving the scoreless tie.

In the 18th minute, senior midfielder Allison Behringer finally ended the Tigers’ dry spell. She corralled a loose ball inside the circle and took a big swing, driving it hard into the wall of the cage to give the hosts an early advantage. But a mere 90 seconds later, the visitors built up a run along the right side of the field and sent a ball across the goal. Though Princeton blocked the initial cross, the ball trickled through a mess of legs and sticks to Yale forward Jesse Accurso on the weak post. Accurso tapped it into the cage, equalizing the score at 1-1.

One play aside, Princeton’s back line played very well against what was statistically the league’s best offense entering the game. The Bulldogs possessed the ball in the offensive zone somewhat often but managed only one shot in the first half. In the 30th minute, the Tigers came up with a big stop when junior midfielder Charlotte Krause intercepted a pass targeted at a Yale striker right in front of the cage.

It appeared that the two teams would head into the locker rooms at a stalemate, but Evans and Kirby created a final attack. The former raced up the field in transition, beating a pair of Yale defenders along the way, then flicked a short pass to her left as she entered the circle. Kirby received the ball in open space, wound up and fired a shot past Cain, sending the Tigers into intermission with a one-goal lead.

“Sid and I have been doing really well together. We have a lot of chemistry,” Evans said. “We work really well together; we have a lot of energy and we know where each other is.”

Princeton continued to pound the cage in the second half, but Cain and her defenders kept turning away shots. Evans found herself wide open in front of the goal and deflected a long cross on target, but the keeper made a blind save. Minutes later, the Tigers took two unchallenged attempts from a penalty corner, but Cain sent both aside.

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To find an opportunity that Cain could not stop, Princeton again turned to its freshman duo. Evans beat her defender to the baseline and again sent the ball to Kirby, wide open near the penalty mark. Kirby did not miss, swatting a shot into the netting for an insurance goal.

“They play well together, because they both understand how to create a two-on-one and they have very good basic skill,” head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn said of her freshman duo. “The future is very bright for those two ... They’ll be able to hold their own at any level.”

Evans and Kirby have assisted each other for four of Princeton’s 12 goals this season, with the duo combining for another two goals and two assists. They played together on the under-17 U.S. National Team before becoming teammates again at Princeton.

“We’ve been friends for a couple years, but when we’re on the field, we have the same mindset, I guess,” Kirby said. “It works, so we’re going to try to keep doing it for the rest of the season.”

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With the Bulldogs aggressively chasing a two-goal deficit, sophomore goalkeeper Christina Maida came under more fire in the late stages of the game. Maida made three stops, including a sprawling kick save of a point-blank attempt, before Yale found the cage again off a penalty corner with four minutes to play.

Maida came up with one more save at the one-minute mark, and that was all the Tigers needed, as the final horn sounded before the visitors managed another attempt.

“Our defense is great,” Evans said. “At the end of the game, it was a really big defensive battle for us. We knew that they were coming down hard, they got a corner and they scored off one, so the last 10 minutes or so was all about our defense.”

The Tigers, now at 1-1 in conference play, are still chasing undefeated Dartmouth and Columbia in the Ivy League. In a short seven-game season, Princeton now has little room to spare as it pursues a seventh straight league title.

“We came out here knowing it was sort of a live-or-die situation in the Ivy League game, so we knew we had to win, and we really came together,” Evans said.

The Tigers will be required to come together as they hope to win bigger games this season, but they won’t have to worry about Evans and Kirby being on the same page.