No. 10 Princeton Digs Deep in 13-11 Win at No. 11 Penn

Wednesday, April 17

Philadelphia, Pa.

6:00 PM

Princeton University

10-3 4-1

Penn

9-4 3-2

Team	1	2	Final F
Princeton	7	6	13
Penn	8	3	11

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

No. 10 Princeton Digs Deep in 13-11 Win at No. 11 Penn

April 17, 2019 | Women's Lacrosse

Box Score

Putting yourself in position to win a championship is never easy. Doing it the way the Princeton women's lacrosse team did on Franklin Field Wednesday night is even tougher.

Battling its archrival Penn in a must-win game in the pursuit of a sixth-straight Ivy League championship, Princeton had to work through three two-minute non-releasable yellow cards – two of which overlapped for more than 90 seconds – in the final nine minutes to try to pull out the win.

And what did Princeton do? It scored the game-winner down a player.

Elizabeth George scored that game-winner, her sixth goal of the night, with 3:50 to play while the Tigers were trying to kill off the last of those yellow cards, and Tess D'Orsi sealed it with a goal into an empty net with 39 seconds left to give Princeton a tough and thrilling 13-11 win over the Quakers.

"It was a gutsy effort," said Princeton head coach Chris Sailer. "To have three non-releasable yellows in the last 10 minutes is just gutsy."

Actually, gutsy is a great word to describe it.

Princeton and Penn came into the game with one loss each in the league as did Dartmouth and Cornell, so the implications were obvious from the start. And that start wasn't a great one for Princeton, as Penn built a 4-1 lead in the first 13 minutes.

Princeton would trail just 8-7 at the break and then shut out the Quakers for the first 20:34 of the second half while scoring four of its own to lead 11-8. Penn, though, did not go away.

In fact, the Quakers scored two goals in less than a minute to make it 11-10 with 8:34 left, the second of which came after one of those non-releasable yellows. The real trouble came when Princeton got two more of them 27 seconds apart, first with 6:05 to go and then again with 5:38 to go. Penn needed just 25 seconds after that to tie it at 11-11, and Princeton was staring at 1:12 more of being two players down.

Nonie Andersen then got a huge draw control – she'd win the last three – and Princeton was able to kill of the first yellow. With the shot clock winding down and the Quakers still man up, Kyla Sears found a perfectly cutting George, who ripped it into the goal to make it 12-11 with 3:50 to go.

For George, the sixth goal tied her career high.

The game was hardly over at that point. Penn would have one more possession after a Princeton turnover, and the Tigers then were the recipient of a yellow card on Penn with 1:38 to go. Princeton killed most of the clock before D'Orsi tossed it into the vacated goal as Penn goalie Mikaila Cheeseman had to come out and chase. Andersen's last draw control enabled Princeton to run out the clock on the huge win.

D'Orsi had four goals, while Sears had two goals and four assists. Andersen finished with seven draw controls.

Sam Fish made 12 saves, including some huge stops during the second half run as Princeton built its 11-8 lead.

Alex Argo led a a defensive effort that held Penn's Gabby Rosenzweig without a goal.

Princeton now plays at Yale Saturday and Cornell April 27. Should the Tigers win both, they would be assured of no worse than a share of the Ivy title and the No. 1 seed in the Ivy tournament.