Tag Archive: W. Lacrosse

  1. W. LACROSSE | Bulldogs look for second win

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    After three straight losses, Yale women’s lacrosse will seek to end the losing streak this weekend.

    The Bulldogs (1–7) will face No. 32 Colgate (6–4) on Friday at home and then travel to face No. 17 Georgetown (2–5) on Sunday. Following a decisive loss at Harvard last weekend, 19–3, Yale hopes that wins at this weekend’s games will build momentum going into its four game stretch against Ivy League opponents beginning next week.

    Yale has not seen a win since an 11–8 victory against Marist on March 5 and has failed to earn a victory against any team ranked within the top 60 in the nation. Yale’s closest loss has also been at home, where the Bulldogs lost to No. 18 Dartmouth on March 5.

    Since last Saturday’s game against the Crimson, the team has focused on draw controls and ground balls. The Elis struggled in both categories against Harvard, winning just nine of 14 draws and three of 21 ground balls.

    Last season, the Bulldogs lost its game against the Hoyas, 15–4. Jordy Kirr, a second team All-Big East selection, leads the Georgetown attack. In last year’s game, she helped Georgetown to their large win over the Bulldogs with a goal and an assist. Sophomore midfielder Sophia Thomas currently leads the Hoyas in goals and ground balls, with 14 and 13 respectively.

    The Bulldogs have not played Colgate since 2006, when Yale won 13–11 in overtime, but Yale holds a 6–1 all time record against the Raiders. Colgate is currently on a three game winning streak and is led by midfielder Colleen Bubnack who has 34 goals this season.

    “The Colgate team is good, with a strong midfield, but if we play tomorrow like we know how we will beat them,” attackman Caroline Crow ’12 said. “Georgetown is a team that is very good every year, but if we come out strong and win the ground balls and draws and play to our strengths, we will win.”

    Midfielder Devon Rhodes ’13 and attacker Crow currently lead the Bulldogs in goals, with Rhodes scoring 10 goals in the last five games. Crow is just one goal away from matching her career high. Rhodes led the team last year with 27 goals as a freshman.

    The Elis will play Colgate at Reese Stadium today at 4 p.m. and travel to Georgetown for a 2 p.m. game on Sunday.

  2. W. LACROSSE | Elis stay winless in Ivy League

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    The women’s lacrosse team suffered its largest defeat of the season on Saturday, falling to No. 18 Harvard 19–3.

    The Crimson got off to a quick start with three goals within the first six minutes of the game, and the Bulldogs never recovered. Harvard dominated the Elis by winning seven of 10 draws and held the Bulldogs scoreless in the second half en route to a commanding victory. The loss extended the Bulldogs’ losing streak to three, and was the team’s seventh of the season. They have yet to win a game in the Ivy League conference.

    “We didn’t give up, but it was hard to fight back after Harvard gained so much momentum,” midfielder Devon Rhodes ’13 said.

    After Harvard’s initial three goals, Rhodes put Yale on the scoreboard with a goal in the eighth minute. But the Crimson answered back with four straight goals to increase its lead to 7–1. Attackers Caroline Crow ’12 and Jen DeVito ’14 kept the Bulldogs in the game with goals of their own in the 21st and 25th minutes, respectively, to put the Bulldogs back within four points.

    “Four goals is not a lot to recover from,” DeVito said.

    But that four-goal margin quickly grew larger. Just over three minutes later, Jenn Leffew scored another goal for the Crimson, and sparked a 12–0 Harvard run to finish the game.

    Devito said the team had difficulty with draw controls against Harvard, which won nine of 14 draws. The Crimson also took 18 ground balls to Yale’s three.

    “We can usually stay pretty even with the other teams in getting draws, but this time we had trouble getting the ball back,” DeVito said.

    Saturday’s game was a marked departure from last season, when the Bulldogs defeated Harvard 17–13. In that game, Yale took a 12–2 lead in the first half and narrowly escaped a second half Harvard comeback in which the Crimson outscored the Bulldogs 11–6.

    “After last year, we knew that Harvard wanted to come back and get revenge,” Rhodes said, adding that Harvard is a stronger team this year than in years past.

    Danielle Tetreault and Jenn VanderMeulen led the Crimson with four goals each. Harvard goalie Kerry Clark saved five of eight shots on goal. For the Bulldogs, Erin McMullan ’14 saved four of 12 shots, while Whitney Quackenbush ’12 saved three of 14.

    While Harvard’s 19 points was the largest total the Bulldogs have allowed this season, Devito said that the defense was not to blame.

    “The defense played well, but Harvard had a few strong shooters and great shots,” DeVito said. “It’s not the defense’s fault if we can’t get [possession of] the ball first.”

    The Bulldogs will have two non-conference games, against Colgate and Georgetown, this weekend before returning to Ivy League play the following week against Princeton. After the loss to Harvard, Crow said the team will re-evaluate its strategy and make adjustments before its next game.

    “Our team has a lot of talent, but we are struggling this year to put our games together,” attacker Caroline Crow ’12 said.

    The Bulldogs will face Colgate at home on Friday at 4 p.m. and will travel to Georgetown for a 2 p.m. game on Sunday.

  3. W. LACROSSE | Yale fades after 25 minutes

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    A hat trick by Devon Rhodes ’13 was not enough for the women’s lacrosse team as it dropped its second straight game, this time to Boston University, 12–5.

    After Yale (1–6, 0–2 Ivy) and BU (4–4) were tied 4–4 three-quarters of the way through the first half, Boston University scored four unanswered goals in six minutes and never looked back. In response to losing a game they said they knew they could win, some Yale players expressed frustration after the game.

    “The entire game was just terribly sloppy and, even more, so frustrating,” Rhodes said. “We didn’t lose because BU was so much more talented then us. In fact, I think we dominated the entire first half … We lost today because we beat ourselves.”

    Whitney Quackenbush ’12, the goalie and recent Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week, agreed with Rhodes’ analysis. She said that the loss was particularly frustrating because the Elis didn’t play up to their potential.

    Head coach Anne Phillips pointed to two key factors in their loss: draw control and ground balls. Yale struggled with the faceoffs, she said. But the team did even worse with the ground balls.

    “For some reason today we could just not get a 50–50 ball,” Phillips said.

    Caroline Crow ’12 also noted the poor weather during the game as factor that may have reduced the quality of play.

    Although Yale had nearly as many shots as BU (22 to 27), Yale scored many fewer points. Yale got just one goal off of 10 shots.

    “You have to shoot somewhere in the vicinity of 50 percent,” Phillips said. “That’s the difference in the game. We could not finish shots.”

    Coach Phillips attributed the weak shooting percentage to inexperience and impatience. Once Yale started trailing, she said, players started to take more shots than they should, either from poor field positions or in too hasty of a manner.

    “If we’d been more patient we would have had a better chance to score,” Phillips said.

    Yale’s offense this year is young: out of seven forwards, five are underclassmen. Phillips said she hopes that the offense will develop more experience by the end of the season.

    The team has had a rough season so far, losing six of its first seven games. The Bulldogs have scored 35 fewer points than their opponents this season.

    Quackenbush said that against BU, when either the offense or the defense was doing well, the other was struggling: at no point was the entire team playing its best lacrosse.

    Phillips said that the team is hoping to gain experience during the first half of the season, even if it may come against tough teams such as BU or No. 20 Boston College, which defeated Yale 18–4 on March 2.

    “If you win games against not challenging teams you kind of artificially create a sense of confidence, but when you play the best teams it’s totally lost,” she said. “When you play the best teams early, even though we’re young, the benefit of that experience will pay off later in the season.”

    Yale plays Harvard in Cambridge on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

  4. W. LACROSSE | First season win for Elis

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    If you’re going to snap a long losing streak to win your first game of the season, you might as well do it in dramatic fashion.

    Devon Rhodes ’13 scored four goals and the women’s lacrosse team (1–4, 0–1 Ivy) used a dominant second half to come from behind and beat Marist (2­–3) by an 11–8 margin Saturday afternoon. The Elis overcame early goalie struggles and a deficit that grew to four goals in the first half to earn their first win of the season.

    “With an 0–4 record, we were just in a bad place mentally,” Rhodes said. “This is absolutely enormous for us.”

    Yale took the field against Marist after three consecutive losses against lacrosse powerhouses. Current No. 14 Boston College and No. 9 Dartmouth beat the Elis last week, and Yale lost again at No. 8 James Madison during a road trip to Virginia Wednesday.

    Head coach Anne Phillips said the losing streak was dispiriting, but that the tough competition was necessary for a squad on which 17 of 26 players are freshman or sophomores.

    “There are growing pains, but we’re challenging ourselves,” she said. “That trial by fire is necessary with the young team we have this season.”

    The Elis did not look inexperienced at the outset, as Kelsea Smith ’13, Caroline Crow ’12, and Rhodes each scored to put their team up, 3–1. But then Marist’s offense came to life.

    The Foxes reeled off six unanswered goals, including four from Jori Procaccini, and owned a 7­–3 lead with just over three minutes remaining in the first half. The home crowd had gone silent and no amount of Yale strategizing seemed capable of stopping the barrage.

    Phillips pulled starting goaltender Whitney Quackenbush ’12 — who had allowed five goals on five Marist shots — in favor of Erin McMullan ’14 after the Foxes’ fourth consecutive goal, but McMullan could not stop a shot either. She allowed two more goals in 13 minutes of play before Rhodes went into high gear.

    “[Rhodes] hasn’t been slumping, but she hasn’t quite been putting up the numbers she did last year, so this game was huge for her,” Crow said.

    The midfielder’s game was huge for her team as well. Phillips switched her to faceoff duty midway through the first half, and the strategy worked. Rhodes led the Elis with four draw controls, which proved crucial to Yale’s dramatic comeback.

    “It was a game of possession,” Crow said. “They were getting the faceoffs early, but we started getting to the fifty-fifty balls in the second [half] and that’s when we turned the game around.”

    Rhodes also turned her faceoff success into tallies on the scoreboard. She ended the Marist run with a goal three minutes before halftime, and then scored again 37 seconds before the horn. That tally narrowed the visitors’ lead to 7–5 as the two teams headed to the locker room.

    Rhodes did not miss a beat when play resumed. She completed her natural hat trick just 11 seconds into the second half when she won the opening draw, raced downfield, and beat Marist goalie Ashley Casiano with a devastating shot.

    “That goal set the tone for the second half,” Phillips said.

    Crow scored her second of three goals ten minutes later as the Eli offensive onslaught continued. The Bulldogs outscored the Foxes 6–1 in the half, with goals from five different players.

    Attacker Jenn DeVito ’14 scored what became the game-winner when her goal with 6:51 left in the game made the score 9–8. The Bulldogs never looked back. They had fewer turnovers than their opponents for the first time all season, and left the field after the win apprehensive but energized for their next game: an Ivy League contest against No. 3 Penn next Saturday.

    With Penn looming ahead, Crow said the victory was a crucial move toward rebounding from a rough start to the season.

    “This game showed the freshmen we can win,” she said. “Now we have to build on it.”

  5. W. LACROSSE | Bulldogs face hot Big Green

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    After two losses in the first two games of the season, the women’s lacrosse team will still be looking for its first win this Saturday when it faces off against Dartmouth.

    That game will be Yale’s first Ivy League game of the season, and it may prove to be a difficult one. The Bulldogs faltered against No. 16 BC on Wednesday night and will face a tough No. 15 Dartmouth team that has won both of its first two games this season, defeating New Hampshire and Vermont.

    “We’re coming into the game as the underdog because we lost the first two [games],” Caroline Crow ’12 said. “We need to come out with intensity.”

    The team struggled on the draw against the Eagles, winning just 10 of 12 in the first half, and gave up 11 goals. The Elis rebounded in the second half, winning half of their draws, but the 18 goals that BC scored on the Bulldogs were too much for them to overcome.

    Last season, the Bulldogs lost to Dartmouth, 12–5. The Big Green return 10 of their 12 starters from last year’s squad, including standout attackers Sarah Parks and Greta Meyer. Parks scored 32 goals last year, while Meyers added 35. Meyers leads this year’s team with six goals.

    On the Bulldogs’ side, Crow currently leads the team with four goals. Devon Rhodes ’13, who led the team in goals last season as a freshman with 27, is second on the team with two goals this season. She said that she expects a good game and that the Yale team has a lot of talent, adding that Dartmouth is one of the better teams in the Ivy League. She added that a win this weekend is essential.

    “We need a big win to rally around for the rest of season,” Crow said.

    The game against the Big Green is slated to begin at 1 p.m. this Saturday at Reese Stadium.

  6. W. LACROSSE | Women’s lax struggles against BC

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    Yale women’s lacrosse was shut out for much of Wednesday’s game versus No. 16 Boston College, and the Bulldogs were unable to stage a comeback.

    No. 16 BC (4–0) continued its undefeated streak as it beat Yale (0–2) 18-4 at the Bulldog’s home opener. The Eagles shut out Yale 11–0 in the first half, controlling the game almost entirely, and allowed only four goals in the second half, while scoring seven more of their own.

    “We attacked for maybe 20 seconds in the first half,” captain Fielding Kidd ’11 said. “When you’re on defense for 30 or 40 minutes straight it’s really tough.”

    She pointed to lopsided ball possession as the key to her team’s loss. BC won 10 of the 12 draws in the first half.

    Caroline Crow ’12 agreed with Kidd, saying that Boston College’s dominance of the draws was key, but she added that Yale improved in the second frame, winning half of the draws.

    “We really turned it around in the second half, I think we won the draw controls,” Crow said. “We didn’t give up.”

    Kidd credited Kaitlyn Flatley ’11, who came off the bench to win two draws. Crow agreed that Flatley had played with a lot of heart but added that in the second half the entire team played with an intensity that had been missing in the first half.

    “[In the] second half, we recognized that the only reason why the score was the way it was was that we simply didn’t have the ball,” Kidd said. “In the locker room we made the draw our No. 1 priority.”

    Yale went on a 4-2 run at the beginning of the second half as Meghan Murray ’14 and Devon Rhodes ’13 scored a goal apiece. Crow scored twice.

    Goalie Whitney Quackenbush ’12 agreed that the team’s offense came together in the second half, but noted that Boston College’s attack was a problem for them for most of the game.

    Rhodes, one of the goal scorers, said that BC’s offense played unusually well during the game, making it hard for the Yale defense to contain the Eagles.

    “Even though our defense played with a lot of heart, especially in the first half where they were active on defense for 30 straight minutes, the second half saw a much better effort from our team collectively,” Rhodes said.

    Yale was shut out for the last 10 minutes as BC scored an additional five goals. But Crow said that the late slump was not a result of a lack of intensity.

    Because there is no shot clock in lacrosse, one team can stall with the ball, passing it around on their end of the field for as long as they want. Yale’s midfielders had to put pressure on the Boston College defenders, which made them vulnerable to a counterattack, Crow said.

    “They were stalling near the end of the game,” Crow said. “We had to take a lot of risks.”

    Kidd said today was especially disappointing since Yale had matched up well against BC when they scrimmaged them in the fall.

    “No one really walked off that field thinking that they played their absolute best,” she said.

    Rhodes said that even though it was a rough loss, the second half had positives that they could take with them in their next game against Dartmouth.

    The game against the Big Green is slated to start at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Reese Stadium.

  7. W. LACROSSE | Bulldogs drop season opener

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    The women’s lacrosse team fell in its season opener at Holy Cross on Saturday afternoon, losing 12–5 in a turnover-plagued performance.

    “Everyone was really rusty,” goalie Whitney Quackenbush ’12 said. “It was hard because it was their third game but our first game. Everyone left that game feeling that we can play better.”

    Holy Cross came into the game after suffering a pair of close losses, and the experience showed as a number of Yale players noted the home team came out with a lot of energy.

    “They were pretty fired up to play,” attacker Caroline Crow ’12 said. “We just needed to play better than we did.”

    After a save from Quackenbush 15 seconds into the game, the Crusaders reeled off five straight goals. Though Yale attempted a few shots during the Holy Cross run, the Crusaders goalie Amy Martin notched a couple of saves.

    Crow finally put the Elis on the scoreboard 20 minutes into the first half with a free-position goal. The score sparked a Yale run, in which midfielder Devon Rhodes ’13 and midfielder Julie Mongan ’14 each notched a goal, cutting the Holy Cross lead to 5–3 with 3:41 left in the first half.

    But the Crusaders responded, as midfield Kat Sutton scored two consecutive goals to give Holy Cross a 7–3 lead at halftime.

    “Because we were down the entire game, I think our attack felt as if we had to score as fast as possible to keep us in the game instead of being patient, poised, and taking advantage of the shot opportunities,” Rhodes said. “We began to play really frantically, forcing low angle shots and shooting directly at their goalie.”

    The offensive problems continued in the second half as Yale would only manage two goals in the half.

    Crow started the second half with a goal for the Elis, but the Crusaders answered with two goals to make the score 9–4 with 17:59 left. Midfielder Kelsea Smith ’13 scored thirty seconds later to bring Yale within four.

    Goalie Erin McMullan ’14, who came in at halftime, then made her biggest save in her first collegiate game in scooping up a shot from wide-open Crusaders midfielder Maddie Carrellas.

    With just under 12 minutes to play, Holy Cross goalie Amy Martin left the field with an injury, but her freshman backup Sarah Weber held her own in getting two saves before Martin came back in the game.

    Overall, the game went scoreless for 13 minutes with Holy Cross leading 9–5.

    The Crusaders extended that lead in the final minutes, scoring three goals to make the final score 12–5.

    The Bulldogs had 21 turnovers in the contest and were held to a 5-for-21 shooting performance. The Crusaders, on the other hand, shot 12 for 25 and dominated the battle for ground balls 23–13.

    “Quite frankly, we beat ourselves,” Rhodes said. “Our offense couldn’t seem to find a steady rhythm, we were dropping passes we never normally would drop and forcing passes all over the field.”

    There were some bright spots in the loss, though, as the Yale coaches pointed out to the team.

    “The coaching staff was disappointed in our offensive play,” defender Fielding Kidd ’11 said, “but they also highlighted the fact that we did well on certain things like the draw control and clearing the ball.”

    Additionally, the Bulldogs, who have 10 freshmen on the team, brought a number of new faces to the contest, but several Yale players said that inexperience did not play a factor in the loss.

    “The lack of experience was not an issue,” Kidd said. “It was our first game and we have some kinks we need to work out. We are a very young team but we are completely capable of being a dominant team in the Ivy League.”

    The Bulldogs are back in action on Wednesday with their home opener against Boston College.

    Despite the loss, the Elis are confident that this will be a very successful season.

    “This is the hardest working and most talented team I have ever been on at Yale,” Kidd said. “We are determined to be our best and show our Ivy competitors that we are serious competition.”

    Wednesday’s game begins at 3 p.m. at Reese Stadium.

  8. W. LACROSSE | Bulldogs’ freshman phenoms

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    Women’s lacrosse coach Anne Phillips’ first recruiting class is already proving its worth.

    The six members of the class of 2013, which includes four players who have played in at least 10 games for the Elis this season, have helped the Bulldogs post a 6–7 record so far this season, good for fourth place in the Ivy League. Last year’s team went 5–11, winning just one conference game.

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    The departure of star attacker Jenn Warden ’09, who graduated last May, left holes for the Bulldogs to fill on offense. Four of the six newcomers have the potential to be offensive threats as midfielders, and have scored 33 of Yale’s 100 goals this season.

    In addition to the four midfielders Devon Rhodes ’13, Kristen Chapman ’13, Brittany De Lea ’13 and Kelsea Smith ’13, the Bulldogs welcomed two defenders, Chloe Drimal ’13 and Adrianna Amendola ’13 to their ranks.

    Rhodes, hailing from East Northport, N.Y., has made arguably the most obvious impact on the team with a team-leading 26 goals and 34 points so far this season. She is also second on the team with eight assists, five behind attacker Jenna Block ’10, who has thirteen. Rhodes came to Yale with an All-American selection for 2008-’09 under her belt, as well as five years of varsity lacrosse after playing for the high-school varsity team as an eighth grader. Rhodes recorded a record eight goals in Yale’s 17–13 win over Harvard on April 3, a game she remembers as a highlight of the season so far.

    “It wasn’t like any other regular season game, it meant a lot more to us to beat Harvard than [to beat] any other team in the league,” she said. “Our team’s energy was so high from the start of the game and everyone came out ready to play.”

    Chapman, a Belmont, Mass., native, has also contributed to the Bulldog offense this season. With five goals and three assists so far this spring, Chapman has continued the success she had as a player at Buckingham Browne and Nichols High School in Cambridge, Mass.

    Also contributing to the Bulldog attack is De Lea, one of three Long Island natives in the freshman class. Appearing in seven games and starting in two, De Lea has recorded an assist and notched two ground balls. Plagued by illness for parts of the season, she looks forward to her next three years as a Bulldog.

    “In the next three years I expect to continue to develop as a player and a as person, and I look forward to watching my teammates grow as well,” she said.

    Amendola, one of the two freshmen defenders, was sidelined for the majority of the season with an injured back. Appearing in five games, she remembers the 8–7 win against Brown on March 17 as an important one for the Bulldogs.

    “Not only was it our first Ivy League win, but it was also such a close game that when [midfielder] Kaitlyn [Flatley ‘11] scored the winning goal for us, we all went crazy,” she said.

    Drimal, the second and last defender of the bunch, has appeared in 12 games and started in 10, recording 11 ground balls in the process.

    Smith rounds out the class of 2013. Coming from Yardley, Penn., where she was first team all-league as a senior in high school, Smith has played in 10 games and scored two goals so far this season. Along with the rest of the group, Smith is looking forward to the next three years and hopes to achieve their goal of winning a National Championship.

    “In the next three years our team will be on the rise, and I look forward to working for an Ivy and national championship,” she said.

    The Elis play their last home game of the season against Georgetown on Friday at 7 p.m. at Reese Stadium.

  9. W. LACROSSE | Elis face last-place Lions

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    This weekend the women’s lacrosse team will look to bounce back from its 11–2 loss against the Princeton Tigers last Saturday.

    The Bulldogs (5–7, 2–3 Ivy) will face the Columbia Lions (5–6, 0–5 Ivy) at home. It will also be “Power in Pink” day at Reese Stadium, where the Elis will honor victims of breast cancer.

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    “We will be wearing special pink jerseys and honoring survivors as well as loved ones lost to breast cancer,” captain and defender Claire Eliasberg ’10 said. “This will definitely give us some additional inspiration going into Saturday’s game.”

    The Lions, coming off a 13–12 win against Quinnipiac, have struggled in the Ivy League this season, and only have games remaining against the Bulldogs and Harvard to get a win in conference play.

    “We know that it would make their season if they could beat us, so we are prepared for them to come out very strong,” attacker Myra Trivellas ’11 said.

    A win on Saturday is essential for the Bulldogs as the Ivy League Tournament gets closer and the team vies for a top-four spot.

    The Elis will try to carry their first-half performance at Princeton, where they led the Tigers 3–2 at the half, to Reese on Saturday. Composure in the second half will be key for the Bulldogs in order to avoid the10-goal run they fell victim to at Princeton.

    “We will try to keep doing what we did well during the first half against Princeton and to eliminate the mistakes we made during the second half,” Eliasberg said. “We really need to focus on winning draw controls and clearing effectively so we can have more possessions on attack.”

    The Bulldogs will look to gain back the offensive momentum they showed against Harvard when attacker Devon Rhodes ’13 scored a school record eight goals, while the Eli defense will look to keep the consistency they have had all season. The Yale defense is anchored by goalie Whitney Quackenbush ’12, who has posted a .498 save percentage and a 9.83 goals-against average. Trivellas knows the focus on Saturday will be executing on attack.

    “Getting the ball up on attack is crucial so that we can have scoring opportunities,” she said. “And everyone needs to make that happen: the middies and the attackers need to help out the defense, who consistently perform.”

    With the Ivy Tournament in mind, the Bulldogs know they need a win against the Lions.

    “We just know, especially as seniors, it is now or never,” attacker Jess Sturgill ’10 said.

    The game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. start at Reese Stadium.

  10. W. LACROSSE | 2nd-half surge propels Princeton over Yale

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    The Princeton Tigers proved too much for the women’s lacrosse team on Saturday afternoon in New Jersey.

    Despite playing strong defense for the first half, 10 unanswered Tiger goals propelled Princeton (5–6, 3–1 Ivy) to an 11–2 win over the Bulldogs (5–7, 2–3) at Princeton Stadium.

    “We were pretty disappointed about how we played on Saturday,” Kaitlyn Flatley ’11, who scored the Elis’ only two goals on the day, said. “We’re a better team than that and we just ended up beating ourselves.”

    It was 10 minutes into the first half before either team scored. Though the Bulldogs spent most of this time on defense, three saves from goaltender Whitney Quackenbush ’12 prevented Princeton from taking an early lead.

    At 20:46, a goal from Kaitlyn Flately ’11 put the Elis on the board. But less than two minutes later, Princeton midfielder Jenna Davis evened the score, capitalizing on a pass from Lizzy Drum.

    Another goal from Flatley at 17:10 put the Bulldogs back on top, but it was the last lead the team would enjoy during the game. The Tigers, despite being shut out for nearly 30 minutes in the first half, proceeded to score ten unanswered goals.

    The streak began with a Kristin Morrison shot from eight meters with 1:30 left in the first half, which gave the home team a 3–2 lead at the break. Freshman Sam Ellis led the Tigers in the second half, scoring three of the team’s eight goals.

    Goaltender Quackenbush explained that problems with transitions prevented the team from shutting down Princeton as they had done in the first half.

    “In the first half the defense was able to hold a very powerful offense to only three goals,” Quakenbush said. “Our transitioning from the defense to the attack seemed to be the deal breaker.”

    But the team also had issues creating scoring opportunities. The Tigers outshot the Bulldogs by nearly a three-to-one margin, putting the ball on net 34 times compared to the Elis’ 11.

    “We had few shot opportunities,” Flatley said. “The amount of turnovers by us and Princeton were pretty equal, but they took advantage of ours and we failed to create opportunities from theirs.”

    Though disappointed by the loss, the Bulldogs had anticipated a tough game from the Tigers, currently ranked third in the Ivy Leauge behind Dartmouth and Penn.

    “Princeton was just as we expected,” attacker Jenna Block ’10 said. “We didn’t play our best game but I am confident we will pick it up next week.”

    Despite the loss, the Elis’ payoff hopes are still alive. The team is tied for fourth in the Ivy League with Brown, Harvard and Cornell, who each have three losses on the season. There is room for only one of the four teams in the Ivy playoffs if the top three teams remain ahead.

    “Overall I don’t feel great about the game, but I feel like as with every game, there are things we can take away from this one,” Quackenbush said.

    Next week the team returns home to take on Columbia (4–7, 0–5), currently in last place in the Ivy League.

    Betsey DiBonaventura contributed reporting.

  11. W. LACROSSE | Yale follows Rhodes to win

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    The women’s lacrosse team had its best offensive day in two seasons as it recorded a 17–13 win against the Crimson on Alumnae Day Saturday at Reese Stadium.

    Attacker Devon Rhodes ’13 led Yale with eight goals — the most scored in a game by a Yale player in 10 years — helping the Bulldogs (5–6, 2–2 Ivy) jump out to a commanding 11–2 lead at half.

    “Everyone knew coming into this game that it was a high stakes game,” Rhodes said. “Beside for the obvious, it being the Harvard-Yale rivalry, it was even more crucial that we won this game in order to make it into the Ivy League tournament at the end of the season.”

    Yale is now tied with Cornell for fourth place in the Ivy League, the final spot that qualifies a team for this season’s inaugural Ivy League tournament.

    Attacker Jenna Block ’10 started off the scoring about three minutes in Saturday with a goal off a free position shot.

    Just 90 seconds later Crimson attacker Melanie Baskind answered with a quick goal to tie it 1–1 but that would be the

    last boost for some time for Harvard as the Elis produced a three-goal run starting with midfielder Kaitlyn Flatley’s ’11 free position goal. The Bulldogs got two more tallies as Block fed Rhodes and then attacker Jess Sturgill ’10 to make it 4–1 just eight minutes into the half.

    “Our attack played really well yesterday,” defender and captain Claire Eliasberg ’10 said. “They’ve been working hard this year, and over the past few weeks, we’ve seen results.”

    Block attributed the team’s offensive outburst to working on movement off the ball and to players learning each others tendencies.

    The Eli’s surge caused the Crimson to make a goalie change early in the game, substituting Kerry Clark for goalie Katherine Martino, who had yet to make a save.

    The goalie switch seemed to work for the Crimson as a Harvard attacker scored at minute 17:15 to make it a two-goal game. But attacker Caroline Crow ’12 responded with a goal off an assist from attacker Myra Trivellas ’11 thirty seconds later. Crow’s goal, which made it 5–2, would be the beginning of a nine-goal run for the Bulldogs that lasted into the second half, during which the Elis converted all nine of their clear attempts and did not commit a turnover.

    “The defenders are doing a great job being patient on the clears and taking care of the ball,” Block said. “Our transition from defense has gotten much better over the course of the last few games.”

    Rhodes had four of the nine goals and Crow had two. Sturgill and midfielder Logan Greer ’11 both had one each during the run. The Bulldog defense was also on a roll while their offense was on a scoring spree as they held Crimson attacker Jen Vander Meulen, who entered the game with 29 goals, to just one tally in the first 40 minutes of play. Rhodes recorded the last tally of the nine-goal run about five minutes into the second half to make it 13–2.

    “We’ve been talking about cutting down on our turnovers all season, and I think a highlight of the Harvard game was that we didn’t have any turnovers in the first half,” Eliasberg said.

    But the second half was much more positive for the Crimson as midfielder Danielle Tetreault scored at 22:40 to start a four-goal run that cut the lead to 13–6 in less than six minutes. The next five minutes of play were back-and-forth for the rivals — Rhodes scored three times to match three Crimson goals. But the Crimson weren’t done yet. They continued to pressure the Bulldogs and were able to go on another four-goal run to bring them within three, making it just 16–13 with two minutes remaining.

    “As soon as we started struggling with draw controls Harvard was able to get back in the game,” Block said. “I wish we had not let things get that close, but when we got that final draw control with three minutes left I knew we had the win.”

    The late comeback from Harvard was not enough as the Elis were able to gain and keep possession of the ball to run out the clock. The Bulldogs were able to solidify the 17–13 win with a free position goal from Flatley with two seconds remaining.

    “I think the team as a whole has finally gotten comfortable working together and we are starting to play as one cohesive unit,” Rhodes said. “Our defense was aggressive and consistent, our midfield transition was fluent and our attack was patient and capitalized on almost every scoring opportunity we had. It was great to see it all come together.”

    The Bulldogs hit the road on Saturday as they head to Princeton, N.J., to face the Tigers in a showdown that begins at 1 p.m.