Led by senior Suzy Gibbons's four goals, the No. 11 Dartmouth women's lacrosse team held on to beat the No. 17 Syracuse Orangewomen, 11-8. Amy Frazier '01 and Whitney Jamison '03 each added a goal and two assists to help the Big Green win its fifth consecutive game.
Syracuse opened the game on the offensive with junior Carrie Soults scoring only 6:36 into the first half. Dartmouth was quick to answer, however, with Gibbons netting her first goal off an assist from Lana Smith '04.
The teams traded goals again in reverse order, with Alison Moulin '02 scoring off a feed from Frazier only to see Syracuse's Stacey Brown even the game up less than a minute later.
The Big Green then rattled off three goals in under three minutes to grab the lead for good. A pair of goals by Gibbons from tri-captain Amy Zimmer '01 and the latter from Jen Newitt '02 were sandwiched around a free position goal by Jamison.
Lauren Brady put home a free position goal at 9:40 to pull the Orange with two. The Big Green then pushed the lead to four with a pair of unanswered goals before the half.
The first was scored unassisted by Molly Jenkins '04 and was followed by a free position goal by Smith with only 14.5 seconds to play in the half. Dartmouth went to halftime with all the momentum and a 7-3 lead.
The second half got underway in a similar fashion to the first half with Syracuse taking play directly to the Big Green. Sarah Hughes '03 made a couple tough saves early on, but she couldn't stop a point blank shot by Erica Mathewson at 26:40 which closed the lead to three.
Dartmouth quickly reasserted itself at 25:16 when Frazier took a sweet pass from Jamison and found the twine to make the score 8-4. Dartmouth's pressure continued until 19:23 when Gibbons made a sweet move just inside Syracuse's zone and commenced a tic-tac-toe series of passes which resulted in Moulin netting her second goal from Frazier.
The teams then traded goals with Soults netting her second on a breakaway for the Orange and Zimmer potting her lone goal of the game. Karen Healy scored on a free shot at 12:48 to pull Syracuse to within a 10-6 score.
Just a few moments later, Gibbons caught an outside pass and nailed another goal to put Dartmouth up five with 9:46 to play. At this point the game started to grow uglier as Syracuse became very aggressive on defensive and the Big Green tried to play keep away.
Syracuse tried to chip away in the latter stages of the game, with Stacey Brown scoring amidst a crowd at 6:31. Brown added another on a long breakaway at 2:47 to pull Syracuse within three, but they got no closer.
Dartmouth gained control of the ball and kept possession until the clock ran out, but not before Moulin got smacked in the head and Frazier was tossed into a snow bank resulting in a yellow card for Sheri Shifren.
Hughes was clutch in goal for Dartmouth as she made 10 saves, most of which were point blank shots, causing the Syracuse faithful to marvel at the sophomore's impersonation of a brick wall in front of the net.
Sophomore Carla Gigon played well in the Syracuse net turning back 12 shots which weren't enough to hold off the persistent Dartmouth attack.
