In their first meeting since last May's NCAA championship game, the No. 1 Princeton Tigers women's lacrosse team defeated the No. 9 Virginia Cavaliers 12-9 last Sunday at Class of '52 Stadium in Princeton, NJ. Senior attack Theresa Sherry of Princeton (3-0) led all scorers with five goals and one assist. Junior attack Amy Appelt led the Cavaliers (4-2) with three goals and two assists.
The pivotal moment was a late first half run by the Tigers in which they scored three straight goals in the final three minutes of the half to take a 7-4 lead at halftime.
The Cavaliers didn't come any closer than three goals the rest of the way, as Princeton opened up a six goal lead at one point only to have it nearly erased by three U.Va. goals to end the game.
"I think it's kind of been like this all season," Appelt said. "As a team collectively we're just trying to get together where we are always on the uphill and not on the downhill."
Courtney Young scored the first goal of the game at 26:39 to give the Cavaliers an early bolt of energy and steady the team. As the game progressed, the Tigers' started pressing more aggressively when Virginia attempted to clear the ball, resulting in 21 Cavalier turnovers on the day. A common theme was Tewaaraton Trophy candidate Appelt, as well as other Cavalier threats like Courtney Young, Kim Connors, and Morgan Thalenberg running straight into the teeth of the Princeton press when trying to clear -- an approach that worked with less frequency as the game progressed. This contributed to Virginia's inability to settle the offense and run certain formations and sets.
"I think our attack played well," Appelt said. "We just didn't make our shots when we needed too, and we didn't execute the way that we should have. When it comes down to crunch time I think we will be able to make those adjustments."
On the other side of the ball Theresa Sherry of Princeton scored five goals, with four coming in the final 32 minutes of the game, many in eye-popping fashion as the lefty continually slipped through the Virginia defense to get point-blank shots on goal.
"Theresa is a great player, a lot of Princeton's success lies on her shoulders," Virginia coach Julie Myers said. "We were ready for her, she's a lefty, she's dynamic and she's hard to stop because she can attack you from so many spots."
Although the Cavalier defense geared towards stopping Sherry as the second half progressed, the team also acknowledged a lack of focus on defense as a problem.
"I think we made some execution mistakes," Myers said. "When we went to double we weren't successful in stealing the ball."
The game at Princeton marked Virginia's fourth and final game in a pivotal early season road trip in which the Cavaliers finished with a 3-1 record including wins over No. 3 Maryland, 10-8, last Tuesday and No. 14 Penn State, 10-9, Friday.
While the Cavaliers said they were disappointed about the outcome on Sunday, they were clearly happy with their performances earlier in the week.
"I thought it was great, it's really hard to be on the road for so long when you're in the hotel and everything is so regimented," senior goalie Andrea Pfeiffer said. "I think we played really great. Starting from Richmond, we kept on building and building -- Maryland was great, Penn State was great. Our defense was playing awesome."
Pfeiffer had a career high 17 saves against Penn State.
While Virginia wasn't necessarily satisfied with going 3-1 on its Spring Break road trip, they managed to learn from another loss to the Tigers and it's clear that the Cavaliers still hold intense emotions about a team they feel stole the national championship trophy from them last spring.
"Revenge, I can't wait to meet them in the finals," Pfeiffer said.
The senior recognizes that there is still the rest of the season to prepare for the NCAA tournament.
"We came back with six or seven minutes left and we dominated," Pfeiffer said. "It's good. I don't expect us to be peaking right now; we're still building. We're fine."
The Cavaliers now have two weeks off, with North Carolina coming to Charlottesville on Saturday, as well as in-state rivals William & Mary and James Madison University visiting later in the month.
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