During the seven-on-seven overtime frame, the Crusaders (10-3) held the ball in the Big Green end before Tara Welch picked up a ball in front of the cage in the 18th minute and fired her 12th shot of the contest past a diving Ashley Heist '08 to secure a Holy Cross victory.
The game was played evenly for the first 70 minutes, but the stalemate was due more to a lack of execution on the part of both squads, especially in the first half. Numerous times, each team had trouble delivering passes to teammates or capitalizing with quality scoring chances once the ball was moved down into the offensive ends.
Head coach Amy Fowler chalked up the play in the first half to a lack of mental execution by the Dartmouth players.
"There was not a lack of effort in the first half; I think it was how smart we were being. The kids wanted to be the first one to the ball [in the first half]," she said. "We were getting to the ball first and then passing it away and not paying attention to what we were doing."
Dartmouth (3-7) got on the board in the middle of the second half thanks in large part to a stubborn defensive effort that repelled a barrage of Crusader scoring chances. Holy Cross was awarded four penalty corners in approximately a three-minute span, but ran the same set play in three of those situations. Goalie Heist was up to the challenge and made some timely saves in net to keep the score knotted.
Leading scorer Lizzie Bildner '08 was quick to help spark a momentum turnaround shortly thereafter, drawing a Big Green penalty corner after she slipped near the endline. Off the restart, Stef Miller '09 stopped a ball for Whitney Waugh '08, who rifled a perfectly-placed low shot past Crusader netminder Erin Singleton to put Dartmouth ahead 1-0 with less than 30 minutes remaining in the second half.
But Holy Cross' ability to win penalty corners ultimately caught up with the Big Green, as Crusader Eli Skovron connected for a goal on a loose ball situation off a corner awarded with about six minutes to play. Holy Cross ended the day with a 10-1 penalty corner advantage and outshot Dartmouth by a 23-6 margin, including a 14-2 mark in the second frame.
Fowler noted that part of the reason Dartmouth did not earn many corners stemmed from the Big Green not selling the penalties to the referees.
"We have a tendency to fight through a foul and then we fight through the advantage, get a shot off and then lose the advantage."
"The shot imbalance is really about people pulling the trigger," she continued. "There were moments in the game where [Holy Cross players] were whipping shots left and right and our kids were thinking about the shot a little too much."
The first half did have some promising moments for each team, but neither the Big Green nor the Crusaders could make the most out of their few chances. In the 20th minute, Sara O'Coin split the Dartmouth backline and put a high shot toward the Big Green net, but Heist countered with a kick save with her right pad. Heist recorded 10 saves for the game.
About a minute later, Bildner attempted a reverse chip shot from inside the circle on the right side, but the ball flew past the crease and wide to the left side of the endline.
The Big Green will face an even more tenacious opponent on Sunday, Oct. 15 when it travels to Tobacco Road to face Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouse No. 2 Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Demon Deacons (13-1) made it to the NCAA tournament semifinals and boasted three postseason All-Americans on its roster in 2005. Game time is set for noon.
