Dartmouth's women's lacrosse team dropped its third Ivy League game in four conference contests in a heartbreaking 10-9 loss to rival Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y, on Saturday.
Despite outshooting the Big Red (5-4, 2-2 Ivy), the Big Green (5-4, 1-3 Ivy) could not outscore Cornell.
While disappointed by the loss, Eliza Bennett '10 remarked that she was happy with the team's performance."We were really confident in the way that we played on Saturday, which is why it was really hard to deal with the loss," Bennett said. "I think we made a lot of improvements from our last two games and felt really good in that we made a lot of the changes that I think we needed to. Things just didn't work out, didn't fall the right way."
The Big Red victory marks the sixth time in Cornell's history in which it has beaten Dartmouth.
The loss puts Dartmouth in seventh place in the Ivy League, one spot ahead of Columbia (3-7, 0-5 Ivy). The Lions are winless in Ivy play.
Cornell is tied for fourth in the conference with Harvard (7-3, 1-1 Ivy) and Yale (8-4, 2-2 Ivy). Princeton (9-0, 3-0 Ivy) and Penn (8-1, 3-0 Ivy) sit atop the standings with identical Ivy records.
Despite the current Ivy ranking, Bennett is hopeful about the team's chances for the rest of the season.
"There's always stuff to work on, and our coaches are always good at addressing those, we work really hard to change those before every game," Bennett said. "Every game is a new game, and we're all really excited for this part of the season, and we get excited for every Ivy game. So I would say that the outlook definitely looks good."
As shown by the close final score, the game flip-flopped back and forth, with each team looking strong at different points throughout the game.
The contest was marked by both long scoreless stretches and high-scoring periods, with the game tied up four times.
At the start of the game, the Big Red gained a 2-0 lead in the first five minutes of the game. Dartmouth, however, gained control by halftime and led by a score of 5-3 thanks to four straight goals from Kristen Barry '08, Kat Collins '11, Greta Meyer '11 and Bennett.
This included a tally with just four seconds remaining in the opening frame when Bennett notched her 19th goal of the season off a pass from Kate Labrum '08.
Dartmouth's advantage coming out of the first half was relatively short-lived as Cornell opened the second by tying it up at 5-5 in the first five minutes.
After Meyer potted her second goal of the game just under 10 minutes into the second half, the Big Red grabbed back a 7-6 advantage just a minute and a half later.
With under 10 minutes left, a score by Barry, her 24th of the season, tied up the match at 7-7. Cornell responded to the goal by putting in two unassisted goals, putting the score at 9-7 in favor of the Big Red with just under seven minutes to play.
Thirty seconds later, Collins found Cate Goytisolo '10 to bring the score within one. The Big Red responded, however, with a goal of its own, putting the score at 10-8.
Barry passed to Meyer who scored to bring the game within one for Dartmouth with 3:41 left in the game, but the Big Green could not beat the Cornell defense to bring the game into overtime. Reese saved two shot attempts by Barry and Meyer to earn the victory in the waning stages of the contest.
Dartmouth outshot Cornell 25-21 during the course of the game. In the first half the Big Green posted 15 shots to the Big Red's nine.
The team was eventually stopped, however, by a career-high eleven saves from Cornell goaltender Kristen Reese in her first collegiate start.
Meyer, a former Ivy League player of the week, led the team in goals on the afternnon, earning her second hat-trick with three goals on four shots.
She was followed by co-captain Barry and Collins, who each had two goals and an assist. Bennett and Goytisolo both chipped in with a goal and an assist apiece.
Bennet commented on the team's need to keep up the level of play the team displayed on Saturday to make up ground in the league.
"At this point, we're just going to play like underdogs," Bennett said. "We have everything to gain by not giving these teams up, no matter what their ranking, so I think we're just going to go in and play every game like we did this Saturday, and it should fall our way eventually. We just have to keep to that standard that we set on Saturday."
Dartmouth will have a chance to bolster its Ancient Eight record when it faces No. 8 University of Pennsylvania at home next Saturday , before the team travels to Harvard and No. 2 Princeton in the next two weeks.
