The women's soccer teams from Princeton and Dartmouth traveled very different roads this season.
While Princeton struggled to a 2-7 record (0-3 in Ivy League play) entering yesterday's game, Dartmouth streaked to its best start in years, winning seven in a row to move its overall record to 8-1 (3-0 Ivy mark) and raise its national ranking to 19th.
The two paths converged yesterday afternoon on Chase Field and the Big Green showed why they're on the higher road as they crushed the Tigers, 4-0.
Brittanny Boulanger '95 opened the scoring for the Big Green with four minutes remaining in the first half. Mya Mangawang '95 sent a nice pass into the box to the wide open Boulanger, who fired a low, hard shot just inside the far post.
Boulanger's fourth goal of the season cured the woes of the Dartmouth offense, which relentlessly pounded Tiger goalkeeper Kristin Alyea in the first half. Near misses plagued the Big Green, such as freshman Jenna Kurowski's acrobatic shot off of a waist-high cross that went just barely wide thirty seconds before Boulanger found the net.
"It was frustrating at first," Co-Captain Stacy Smith '94 said. "We knew that we would score, we just couldn't get the ball in the goal."
Everything changed after halftime. Eight minutes into the second half, Melissa McBean '97 scored her team-leading sixth goal. Mangawang again set up the play with a good feed and McBean beat one defender and the onrushing Alyea to put it in the net.
The Big Green struck again in impressive fashion with six minutes left in the game. Holly Thomas '97 sent a 30-yard direct kick into the mouth of the goal, and Smith outleapt Alyea to head the ball in goal.
"I made eye contact with Holly right before the kick," Smith said. "I was basically saying, give it to me, set me up. She hit a beautiful ball and I just got my head on it."
Two minutes later, Christina Hallenbeck '97 scored Dartmouth's final goal of the day off of a cross from Cindy Goodwin '97.
The victory marked the end of a high-scoring week for the Big Green. Wednesday afternoon, Dartmouth defeated Boston College 3-0 in Boston.
Kate Andrews '96 scored the first goal of the afternoon when her corner kick deflected off of a defender and went into the net.
"We really settled down after that first goal," Coach Steve Swanson said. "Whenever you score the first goal, the onus is on the other team. They increased their pressure and we just had to take advantage of the opportunities that arose because of that. We finished well [against BC], and that was nice to see."
McBean finished the scoring for the Big Green off assists from Hallenbeck and Andrews.
"BC is a funny team because they have very good individual players who create unexpected opportunities," Swanson said. "Michelle made some big saves that kept BC from getting back into the game."
BC had always been a troublesome opponent for the Big Green -- during Swanson's tenure as coach, he had never beaten them prior to Wednesday.
"We always played well enough to win" in years past, Swanson said. "We just didn't put it all together."
Dartmouth puts its 9-1 record on the line as the women face the University of Massachusetts, ranked ninth nationally in the most recent poll, Wednesday at Chase Field. Game time is 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, the Big Green square off against Cornell in a monster match. The two teams are currently deadlocked atop the Ivy standings with identical 4-0 league records. Kickoff is at 1:30 p.m. in Ithaca, New York.
