Women's Lacrosse: Tigers look to rebound from tough loss

The women’s lacrosse team will travel to Hanover, N.H., Saturday to face Dartmouth College for its last game of Ivy League play for the regular season. The Tigers (8-5 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) lost their first place edge in the league Wednesday night after a double overtime 10-9 loss to Penn.

“It was a tough game to lose but we have to rebound quickly since we have a game on Saturday,” head coach Chris Sailer said. “After you have a result like last night, the best thing you can do is get out and play, especially against an opponent like Dartmouth that’s been such a traditional rival for us. It’s a chance for us to get right back at it.”

Princeton is currently tied with Dartmouth (8-5, 4-1) in the loss column in the Ivy standings. Dartmouth was also given its only Ivy League loss by Penn in a close game last Friday, so this game will determine which school will most likely take second place. If Penn loses to Brown on Saturday, however, the Tigers would still have a shot at sharing first place with the Quakers.

Looking toward Saturday’s game, Princeton will have to play well at every position in order to come out with a win.

“I think we have to be a little more aware defensively. We made a couple mistakes [last night] and we want to make fewer mistakes,” Sailer said. “Offensively I think we need to just move a little harder, probably take a few more chances and finish the looks that we get.”

The Big Green is coming off of a two-game losing streak to Penn and Maryland on Sunday and Sailer knows what to look out for in order to keep the streak going for one more game.

“They’ve got two really good kids on the crease in [Liz] Calby and [Hana] Bowers,” she said. “They pretty much run a lot from behind the cage, they’re very sneaky. The two of them are a really good pair so we’re going to have to play really strong on the crease and communicate well, make good decisions in terms of when we bump out and switch and when we stick with our own girl. And they challenge very well from the corners, so our angles on defense are going to be critical to taking away the shots that Dartmouth wants to see.”

Regardless of who wins on Saturday, though, Sailer said the Tigers will see the Big Green again in two weeks during the first round of the Ivy League Tournament. The winner of that tournament gets the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, so Princeton has to continue to work hard.

“We want to finish off the best we can in the league, we want to set ourselves up to continue to win games and have a good shot at the automatic, as well as potentially qualifying for an at-large berth,” Sailer said.