Princeton’s domination of the women’s lacrosse team continues.
A three-goal flurry at the end of the first half and two more tallies to start the second propelled the No. 2 Tigers (9-1, 3-0 Ivy) to their 11th straight victory over Yale — an 11-5 win Saturday afternoon in Princeton, N.J. In the race for the Ivy League championship, the No. 12 Bulldogs (7-2, 3-1) are now tied for second with Cornell, one game behind Princeton in the loss column.
The win was Princeton’s ninth in a row and snapped Yale’s victory streak at six.
“Going into the game, I thought our defense really needed to step up and our goalie would have to have a good game. And I thought they did that,” Sarah Queener ’03 said. “What it came down to was we just weren’t capitalizing on offense. We were just very stagnant.”
The Tigers led from start to finish, outshooting Yale 36-23 on the day. The Elis’ five goals was the lowest offense output since a 10-3 loss to Rutgers last April 14.
“They are a really good team, and we have to give them that credit, but I don’t think it was anything they did,” Clarissa Clarke ’03 said. “Our attack wasn’t as fluid as it had been. There was no real rhythm to it.”
Despite the lack of offensive execution, a Miles Whitman ’04 goal with just over six minutes to play in the first half brought Yale to within one goal of Princeton, 4-3.
But the Tigers came out of a timeout with two and half minutes left in the half to score three goals in a span of 87 seconds to take a 7-3 lead. Sophomore midfielder Theresa Sherry, who found the net four times in the afternoon, had a goal and an assist during the stretch.
In the second half, Princeton put Yale away with two quick strikes in the period’s first four minutes, upping their advantage to 9-3. The Tigers only scored two more times in the second half, but the Eli attack could not get the team within four goals the rest of the way.
“Our defense did an unbelievable job in the second half keeping them to four goals,” Clarke said. “We had opportunities — we would find ourselves wide open, we had feeds in, but we either ended up hitting the goalie or missing the cage.”
Katherine Sargent ’05 had two scores for the Bulldogs, giving her 15 tallies on the season and her fourth straight multiple-goal performance. Whitman, Clarke and Queener had one goal apiece for the Bulldogs, while goalie Amanda Laws ’03 made 11 saves.
The Elis returns to action with a must-win game at home versus Columbia Wednesday at 3 p.m. at Johnson Field. For the Bulldogs to have a chance at an Ivy League championship, they need to win their three remaining league contests and hope someone else can stop the Princeton juggernaut.
Last year, after winning the first eight games of the season, a loss to Princeton prompted a 2-5 finish to the season for the Bulldogs, an experience Yale veterans do not want to duplicate.
“We need to be mentally strong in the next seven games,” Clarke said. “We are not going to let what happened last year happen again.”