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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Tigers Visit Top-Seeded Northwestern In NCAA Quarterfinal Saturday
May 14, 2008 | Women's Lacrosse
Three seasons ago, nearly to the day, Princeton saw its impressive streak of five straight final four appearances in women's lacrosse halted by top-seeded Northwestern. The 2008 Tigers, led by five seniors who were freshmen that day in Evanston, return to the shores of Lake Michigan Saturday in the hopes of ending another impressive streak.
The No. 8 seed Tigers visit the top-seeded Wildcats for an NCAA quarterfinal game at 2 p.m. ET Saturday at Lakeside Field, with the winner headed to next weekend's national semifinals at Towson University. Northwestern's impressive streak? Three straight NCAA championships, and 61 wins in 64 games, since that last meeting with the Tigers in 2005.
A live video stream, as well as live audio and live stats for Saturday's game, will be available at http://nusports.cstv.com and at the links above. The winner of the Princeton-Northwestern game meets the winner of the Syracuse-North Carolina game in the first national semifinal at 6 p.m. Fri., May 23, in Towson.
Three of Princeton's five seniors, attacker Ashley Amo, midfielder Katie Lewis-Lamonica and defender Norris Novak, started that game as freshmen three years ago. The Wildcats won a tight defensive battle by an 8-6 score that day to advance to the semifinals.
Amo had a big game for Princeton (13-4) in its 14-10 win over Vanderbilt in the first round of this year's tournament, scoring three goals and adding three assists, including one each in a four-goal Princeton run in the late stages that put the game away. With the win, the Tigers advanced to the quarterfinal round for the 17th time in their 18 all-time NCAA tournament appearances.
Princeton head coach Chris Sailer enters Saturday's game with a 28-13 all-time record in NCAA tournament games. She needs one NCAA tournament victory to tie former Maryland and Northwestern coach Cindy Timchal for first place on the all-time list in Division I.
The only blemish for the Wildcats (18-1) this season was an 11-7 loss at Penn three weeks ago. Northwestern, which used a strong second half to defeat Notre Dame 15-7 in last weekend's first round, has won 80 of its last 83 games since the beginning of the 2005 season, having lost to North Carolina in 2007 and Duke in 2006 in addition to the defeat in April at Penn.
Amo moved into the team lead in scoring for Princeton with her six points against Vanderbilt; she now has 27 goals and 23 assists on the season. Junior Christine Casaceli leads the Tigers with 36 goals, while junior Holly McGarvie is second on the team with 33 goals and leads the Tigers in ground balls (44), draw controls (40) and caused turnovers (26).
Freshman goalie Erin Tochihara has started each of the last two games for the Tigers in goal. She had eight saves, including seven in the second half, in the regular-season finale at Georgetown and four saves in the NCAA win over Vanderbilt.
Northwestern is led by Tewaaraton Trophy finalist Hannah Nielsen, who has 54 assists and is one point shy of 100 for the season, and Hilary Bowen, who has a team-high 69 goals. Defender Christy Finch is also a Tewaaraton finalist. She has team highs of 64 caused turnovers and 55 ground balls this season.
In addition to the Princeton-Northwestern and Syracuse-North Carolina games, Penn will play Boston University and Maryland will play Duke in other quarterfinal games Saturday.
With a win, Princeton would reach the national semifinals for the 12th time. The Tigers, NCAA champions in 1994, 2002 and 2003, also reached at least the semifinal round in 1989, 1992 and 1993, 1995 and 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2004.