Dartmouth women's lacrosse maintained their perfect record in a decisive 13-8 victory over Ivy opponent No. 13 Cornell at Scully-Fahey field on Saturday. With the help of senior Katieanne Christian and sophomore Whitney Douthett each scoring three goals, the Big Green worked as a team and earned another Ivy League victory, making their record 9-0 and 4-0 in Ivy League play.
The first half of play was all about the Big Green as they scored the first four goals of the game. Adding to her current tally of 97 career goals, Christian ripped the first two goals of the game past Cornell goalkeeper Maggie Fava less than one minute apart. With ten minutes off the clock sophomore Jen Pittman fed Sarah Szefi '07 to score her first goal of the game. Two minutes later Annie Leibovitz '06 tooled Cornell's defense and potted her first goal of the game unassisted to put the Big Green up 4-0 with 18:03 left on the clock. Two and a half minutes later, Cornell retaliated as Katherine Simmons put back their first goal. For the remainder of the half Dartmouth and Cornell traded goals as Douthett scored assisted by junior midfielder Kristen Zimmer and Leibovitz scored assisted by Szefi. Christian concluded the first half, putting on a clinic, as she scored her third goal unassisted and then fed the ball to teammate Szefi to put Dartmouth ahead 8-3.
Christian again opened the second half with an assist to Pittman, for Pittman's first goal of the game. Christian, with her three goals and two assists on the afternoon, increased her total career points to 113, and surpassed Emily Fenwick '00 who was 16th all-time for Dartmouth with 112 points. Cornell came back less than a minute afterwards, scoring the first of their five goals of the second half. However, Dartmouth continued to rip shots past Cornell's Fava with another goal by Pittman, two potted by Douthett and one from Kristen Barry '08 to make the final score 13-8. Barry, a standout rookie and valuable contributor to the team, was excited with the win. She said, " Our team came out with a lot of fire today and fought hard through the entire game. Watching our defense shut down Cornell was so impressive and the way our attack used what the Cornell defense gave us showed so much poise and confidence."
The defense stood strong throughout the entire game, continually shutting down Cornell's offense. Goalkeeper Devon Wills '06 had an impressive 11 saves including nine in the second half. Recently named Ivy League defensive player of the week, Erin Osborn '05 said, "It's always nice to win decisively against a good opponent, especially another Ivy League team. We worked very hard as a whole team to prepare, and it was nice to see that pay-off."
Coach Amy Patton, now in her 13th year at Dartmouth, commented on her team's 9-0 record, easily the best start in the program's 32-year history, by saying, "I just feel that this team is really responding well to making progress each week in practice and then implementing that in games. I feel like we are so focused on ourselves that it's really helping us in games. We're not getting completely focused on the opponent."
Dartmouth's next opponent is No. 17 Syracuse, a home game on Tuesday at 3 p.m. "We are looking at today's game and the game against Syracuse as being the turning point in our season. We are excited to move on to Syracuse as they are always a scrappy and intense team," noted Wills about the Big Green's upcoming game. Co-Captain Sanborn attributed Dartmouth's success against Cornell to its "strength and depth as a team" and hopes that will prove successful in Tuesday's contest as well.
