The No. 16 Dartmouth women's lacrosse team has a steep hill to climb if it is going to regain its title as Ivy League champions.
After losing to 12th-ranked Cornell 13-8 in Ithaca on Saturday, the Big Green's in-conference record fell to 2-2 (6-4), good enough for fifth in the Ivy League behind Princeton, Harvard, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania.
Dartmouth was the preseason favorite to finish first, but with a perfect conference record, Princeton is currently on top of the standings. The Big Green will take on the No. 8 Tigers on April 22 in Princeton.
Saturday's game afforded the Dartmouth women a chance to put themselves back in the race. But instead, Cornell, which never trailed in the contest, dominated play.
"Cornell is a very good team," said Dartmouth head coach Amy Patton. "I was really impressed with them."
The game started slowly but quickly picked up its pace after Kristen Zimmer '06 tied the score for Dartmouth at 1-1 halfway through the opening period.
Cornell responded with four goals in just over three minutes.
The Big Red attack overwhelmed Dartmouth's vaunted defense. After extending its lead to 6-1, the Big Red stood on the verge of a blowout win, but Dartmouth refused to go away.
Annie Leibovitz '06 scored with under two minutes to play in the first half, shrinking the halftime deficit to 6-2.
"We have had a problem playing well in the first half," Patton said. "As good as everyone is on our schedule, only playing 20 or 30 minutes of a game is not going to be good enough for us. It was too late against a team like Cornell."
Dartmouth did raise its game at the start of the second half, though. Casey Hazel '06 and Sarah Szefi '07 each found the back of the net in the first four minutes, making the score 6-4 and forcing Cornell to call a timeout.
Then, after dropping a couple goals to Cornell, Lizzy Cuneo '06 and Hazel returned fire, closing the gap to 8-6.
But that was as close as the Big Green would get. Cornell scored the next four goals, running its lead to six.
Margo Duke '07 and Szefi had Dartmouth's last two tallies.
In addition to their goals, Szefi, Leibovitz and Hazel each had an assist. Whitney Douthett '07 also recorded an assist in the game. Hazel now has 23 goals this season, which ties her for the team lead with Jen Pittman '07.
Sophomore Courtney Farrell led Cornell with four goals and three assists. Allison Schindler and Charlotte Schmidlapp both scored twice for the Big Red.
Maggie Fava, Cornell's senior goalkeeper, made 11 saves., while Dartmouth keeper Devon Willis '06 had six. The Big Green out shot the Big Red 32-27.
Cornell improved to 7-2 overall and 3-1 in conference with the win.
The Dartmouth women might have been able to afford the away loss at Cornell if they had not fallen earlier this season at home to seventh-place Yale. The Bulldogs' shocking game-winner with 19 seconds left in that game may have ruined Dartmouth's chances for another Ivy title.
Of the four teams currently ahead of Dartmouth in the Ivy standings, three are still on the schedule. The other is Cornell. But even if the Big Green wins those last three conference games, the team may still finish out of first place for only the fourth time in the last 11 years.
Dartmouth knows it has to win to have a chance. Next week, the Big Green hosts Penn in one of only two home games this month. The 20th-ranked Quakers are 6-4 (2-1).
"Penn is a good team. We're going to have a battle on our hands," Patton said.
But they will have to win an even tougher battle if they are going to repeat as Ivy champions.
On the possibility of finishing first in the conference, Patton said, "That possibility is pretty slim right now."
Dartmouth is not giving up on the season, though.
"The bulk of our schedule is with Top-20 teams. We can still make a statement," Patton commented. "We're not worrying about Ivy or NCAAs. I think we've been too focused on that."
The Big Green will try to start making that statement at 1 p.m. next Saturday at Scully-Fahey Field.
