March 21, 2007

Box Score

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Two-game losing streaks are rare for the Yale women's lacrosse team. Three-game losing streaks are almost unheard of -- they have only had one in the last seven seasons. So back-to-back losses to then-No. 6 Notre Dame and then-No. 16 Penn had the No. 17 Bulldogs looking to make a statement and avoid the dreaded three-game skid on Wednesday afternoon. They did so by outscoring BU 9-0 in the second half to turn a 5-4 dogfight into a 13-5 Yale win.

The offensive performance was all the more important coming off a three-goal output against Penn Sunday that was Yale's lowest in six years. Unable to get on the field to practice on Monday because of snow left over from the weekend storm, the Bulldogs met as a team and began working on a turnaround.

"Offensively, we regrouped," said Amanda O'Leary, Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Lacrosse. "We worked on a lot of things. We can't let the game be dictated to us -- we needed to take control."

Ironically it was BU that first had control of the game, as the Terriers' Lauren Morton raced down the field after the opening draw control and took a feed from Tracy Landy to score only 12 seconds in. Angie Martin added another goal three minutes later, and the teams then traded three goals each over the next 20 minutes.

Sophomore defenseman Jenn Warden, junior midfielder Lauren Taylor and junior midfielder Kat Peetz accounted for Yale's three tallies in that span, but the Terriers still seemed to have the Bulldogs at a safe distance until Peetz set up Taylor for a goal that made the score 5-4 BU 3:46 before halftime.

Yale then established control quickly at the start of the second half, scoring 75 seconds in. Sophomore midfielder Taylor Fragapane took a pass from Warden in front of the goal, gave a fake, and then deposited her second goal of the season to even up the score. A minute later senior attacker Marya Myers scored off a feed from junior attacker Meredith Callahan and the Bulldogs were up for the first time all day, 6-5.

Taylor then backed down a BU defender in the crease, shielding the ball with her body before firing it past goalkeeper Jenna Golden to extend Yale's lead to 7-5 with 22:58 to play. Two minutes later, when the BU defense closed off a series of cuts, Warden got the ball well past the 8-meter arc and bounced a shot past Golden from long distance to make it 8-5.

That would wind up being more than enough scoring, because the Yale defense delivered a dominant half on its end. Junior goalkeeper Ellen Cameron finished with four saves, but her only action in the second half came on picking up ground balls loose in the crease.

The defenders in front of Cameron made it tough for the Terriers to try to reclaim any momentum. Right after Taylor's goal made it 8-5 BU got a Yale turnover but could not take advantage of it, as senior defenseman Lindsay Levin drew a charge on Sarah Dalton to get the ball right back. Dalton entered the day as BU's leading scorer with 11 goals, but she was held scoreless by the Bulldogs.

This was just the fourth time in the last 57 games BU has scored five or fewer goals, and Yale has accounted for two of those performances.

"Defensively, the first couple of minutes were shaky," said O'Leary. "But then we started to slide to the double-teams and we started fronting the cutters. In the end, we did well, and it was a total team effort."

Levin was one of eight Bulldogs to register a caused turnover. Warden had a team-high three, while freshman defenseman Michelle Fiorentino and junior defenseman Katie Wiacek had two each. O'Leary also praised junior defenseman Jess Champion for her work in shutting down Morton, who entered the day with 10 goals.

After a goal from senior midfielder Lara Melniker made it 9-5 Taylor added one more goal to give her four for the day and 31 for the season. Just as important was the work of those around her offensively. Fragapane got another goal with 4:07 to play when she caught Golden ranging too far from the crease and raced past her for an empty-net goal. Myers and freshman attacker Jessica Sturgill also scored in the game's final minutes.

In all, seven different Bulldogs had goals and four different Bulldogs had assists (three for Peetz, two for Callahan, one for Warden and one for sophomore midfielder Sara Greenberg).

"That was what we wanted to do," O'Leary said of Yale's offensive distribution. "We opened up our offense to include more people, and they came through for us. That makes a big difference. Marya played very well in transition. Lara Melniker also did a great job. She was a presence offensively."

This was Yale's most decisive half since posting a 10-0 first half last Apr. 19 against Brown en route to a 14-6 win. It could not have come at a better time, as the Bulldogs need all the momentum they can get heading into a crucial Ivy League game vs. No. 8 Dartmouth Saturday at Johnson Field at Noon.

report by Sam Rubin '95 (sam.rubin@yale.edu), Yale Sports Publicity