Princeton Wins Sixth Straight Ivy League Title!

Saturday, April 27

Ithaca, N.Y.

3:00 PM

Princeton University

12-3, 6-1Ivy

Cornell

8-7, 4-3Ivy

Princeton

Cornell

Photo by: Patrick Tewey

April 27, 2019 | Women's Lacrosse

Box Score

The Princeton women's lacrosse team walked off of Sherrerd Field back on March 23 after a loss to Brown knowing it had no margin for error as it chased a sixth-straight Ivy League championship.

Five league games remained. It would take five wins to get it done. To top it all off, Princeton didn't realize at the time that getting there would require beating what would turn out to be the other three teams in the Ivy League tournament, all on their home fields.

One by one the Tigers checked them off until they came to Cornell on a freezing afternoon in late April. Now there was only one more hurdle left between the Tigers the title.

Tess D'Orsi, Elizabeth George and Kyla Sears scored four goals each to help Princeton to an 18-15 win over Cornell. The win gave Princeton the sweep of those five games it needed and meant a sixth-straight Ivy championship, which is also the 15^th in program history.

The Tigers share the Ivy title with Dartmouth but earn the No. 1 seed in next weekend's Ivy tournament at Columbia by virtue of their win over the Big Green on April 6. Princeton will play Cornell again at 5 in one semifinal, after second-seeded Dartmouth and third-seeded Penn meet in the first game.

"I'm so proud of how this team has battled all season," said Princeton head coach Chris Sailer, who has been the coach for all 15 of those titles. "Our first goal every year is to win the Ivy League championship, and now we have achieved that. I'm especially proud of the seniors, who made up their minds that they were going to lead us to this championship and wouldn't be denied."

Princeton won dramatic games at Dartmouth and Penn to put itself in position to close it out at Cornell on a day that began with snow showers in Ithaca. Cornell came into the day still with a chance of getting a share of the championship as well, but that ended when Dartmouth defeated Yale 23-9 before the game on Schoellkopf Field began.

Princeton came out flying and built a 6-1 lead in a little more than 11 minutes. It grew to 12-5 at the break and 14-5 early in the second, but Cornell did not go away.

The Big Red scored five of the next seven, cutting it to 16-10, and would eventually get within three at 18-15 with 2:19 left.

Marge Donovan, who also had a caused turnover and three ground balls, won her eighth draw control after that goal, and Princeton never gave the ball back to the Big Red after that, first taking the shot clock down under 10 and then getting the ball back after D'Orsi's shot was saved and she won the race to the end line to maintain possession.

Princeton, one of four teams in the country who shoot better than 50 percent as a team, was a blistering 18 for 30 in this one. D'Orsi also had a pair of assists for a six-point day, while Allie Rogers had two goals and two assists and Julia Haney had two goals and one assist.