Last Saturday, the Dartmouth women's soccer team (5-9-2, 3-3-1 Ivy) concluded a season of more downs than ups with a solid victory over the Brown University Bears 1-0.
"Overall it was a pretty good game and we came out with the win," co-captain Annie Stanley '08 said. "[The game against Brown was] not a bad way to finish a season or, in my case, my career."
To start the game off with a bang, in the fifth minute of play Melisa Krnjaic '11 scored her first career intercollegiate goal. Brown (6-10-1, 3-4 Ivy) was unable to come back in the remaining 85 minutes as Dartmouth held on for a 1-0 win.
"At the end of the game, Brown was moving more players forward," Stanley said. "But as a team, we defended well and kept them from scoring."
Co-captain Monica Martin de Bustamente '08 agreed with Stanley that the team played hard and hung in there for the whole 90 minutes.
"We probably didn't play our best the entire game and at times struggled," Martin de Bustamente said. "But we pulled through and, like we did all season long, never gave up."
In the game, Brown outshot Dartmouth 15-10, while the Big Green had seven shots on goal compared to the Bears' two shots on goal.
Amanda Webb '08 ended her collegiate career on a high note with her 15th career shutout.
Overall, the seniors were happy with the way the game went and were satisfied with their career-ending victory.
"Knowing that yesterday's game was the last game of our season, we were all determined to win," Stanley said. "Myself and the three other seniors on the team wanted to go out with not only a win but a good performance as well. I feel that we got both of these on Saturday night."
The win over Brown showed that the Big Green had much more potential than its record from this season indicates. Brown was the only team to beat Ivy League Champions Penn in Ivy League competition.
Dartmouth had a tough string of Ivy League games this season, going 1-3-1 in its first five division contests. In all three games that the Big Green lost, the team only fell by one goal. However, the Dartmouth women turned their season around, finishing strongly with a two-game winning streak against ivy foes Cornell and Brown.
"Our season was far from ideal, but brought us very close together" Martin de Bustamente said. "Although we didn't do as well as we had expected it was nice to see that no matter what we were going to fight until the end. We improved in every game we played."
Dartmouth only loses four seniors next year, so the core of the team will be intact next season. Nevertheless, the Big Green loses key components of its team, including Webb and Stanley who have both been All-Ivy Honorable mentions in the past.
However, the team returns its top two goal scorers in Maggie Goldstein '10 and Ali Hubbard '10, as well as 2006 All-Ivy Honorable Mention Myra Sack '10.
The team also returns Emily Forline '09, Laurel Peak '09, Peyton Tata '11, Kelsey Quick '10, Katie Davis '11, Jenny Stone '10 and Krnjaic, who have all started the majority of this season's games for the Big Green.
"This just wasn't our year," Martin de Bustamente said.
"But I cannot wait to watch next year and see how well the women's soccer team is going to do."
