April 21, 2007

Box Score |  Photo Gallery 

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Win and wait. That was all the No. 12 Yale Bulldogs could do, so they went out and beat Cornell 13-8 Saturday afternoon on Senior Day at Johnson Field. Now they spend 15 days awaiting word on an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. The win is Yale's ninth in a row -- the Bulldogs have outscored their opponents 114-66 in that stretch -- and improves the team's overall record to 13-3, tying the school record for regular-season wins.

Not bad for a team that was 4-3 less than five weeks ago. As it turned out, the Bulldogs' only losses this season were all to teams currently ranked in the top 10, and they were by a combined total of 12 goals. Yale is one of only six teams in the country with 13 or more wins right now.

"From the beginning of the season we knew we had a lot of potential and we knew we really could go far," said captain Lindsay Levin. "At the start we struggled a little. We played really strong teams -- JMU, Notre Dame -- and we put up a good fight, but we always knew that we weren't willing to accept that mediocrity. We wanted to push harder and go further."

So after losing to Penn on Mar. 18 the Bulldogs went out and won nine games in a row, including victories over two teams currently in the top 20 (Dartmouth and Princeton). It has been 12 years since Yale last won that many games consecutively in a season, and 16 years since they beat the Big Green and the Tigers in the same season.

As has been the case throughout their turnaround, the Bulldogs won Saturday with a tenacious defense highlighted by 15 saves from junior goalkeeper Ellen Cameron.

"She was amazing today," said Levin. "When Cornell slipped through our D she made amazing saves, she had ground balls coming out of the goal ... She was all over the place. There's nothing more you can ask. She puts her heart into every single game."

The Bulldogs, who started the week ranked No. 6 in the country in scoring defense (8.36 goals allowed per game), had some early lapses that enabled Cornell to jump out to a 3-1 lead in the first 9:17. Yale's lone tally came from sophomore defenseman Jenn Warden, who extended her goal-scoring streak to 20 games.

The Yale comeback began when sophomore midfielder Taylor Fragapane got the draw control after the third Cornell goal, then converted on a free-position shot.

"We're used to it -- it seems as if we've had to come back in every game," O'Leary said. "I don't think our team panics at all."

Cameron came through with a big save on a shot by the Big Red's Margaux Viola, and shortly after that junior midfielder Lauren Taylor fired in the game-tying goal. She now has a 24-game point-scoring streak.

Junior midfielder Kat Peetz capped the run with a pair of goals six minutes apart, the second off a nice feed from Taylor. That gave Peetz a career-high 28 goals for the season.

Those goals put the Bulldogs up for good, but Cornell (3-9, 2-4 Ivy) kept it interesting throughout. Viola scored to pull Cornell back within one before Fragapane (assisted by Taylor) and Taylor closed out the half with goals for a 7-4 lead.

Taylor's goal came with just 14 seconds left in the half, enabled by Levin's caused turnover in the Yale end and a ground ball pickup by senior attacker Marya Myers.

Cornell scored the first goal of the second half, but Taylor responded to make it 8-5 with 24:44 remaining. Then it was all Cameron, as she got her stick down to stop a free-position attempt by Noelle Dowd with 17 minutes left and stopped Deirdre Lafferty's shot from right in front after a nice feed by Courtney Farrell. Farrell, who entered the game tied for second on the team in goals with 18, was limited to just one on Saturday as she was marked by junior defenseman Jess Champion.

There were still more highlights to come from Cameron, who has a robust .532 save percentage and a miniscule 6.77 goals-against average during Yale's nine-game winning streak. She stopped Dowd not once but twice in a matter of seconds midway through the half -- the first time on a free-position shot, then again when Dowd got the rebound right in front and tried another shot.

"Ellen was ridiculous," said O'Leary. "I'd say it was the game of her career, but it's actually what we've come to expect from her."

An interception by Taylor then gave Yale a chance to start pulling away. Myers delivered a free-position goal with 14:49 to play, and Fragapane converted a pass from Taylor two minutes later. Sophomore midfielder Linden Ellis' goal, assisted by Myers, gave Yale even more breathing room with 6:33 remaining.

Katherine Simmons got the Big Red within five with 3:27 left, and a back-and-forth final minute saw each team score twice for the 13-8 final. Yale's goals came from Fragapane (assisted by Warden) and Taylor.

Fragapane's four goals represent a single-game best for her. Ten of her 11 goals on the season have come during the nine-game win streak.

"Taylor went out there played her heart out," said O'Leary.

Named a Tewaaraton Trophy nominee on Friday, Yale's "other" Taylor -- Lauren Taylor -- finished the regular season with 61 goals and currently leads the country in that category. That is third-best single-season goal total in school history and the most by a Bulldog in 27 years (Tracy Ball had 65 in 1980; Ball set the school record with 75 in 1979). Taylor's 77 points are fifth-most in school history, and she and All-American Miles Whitman (81 points in 2004) are the only Bulldogs to break 70 points in the last 27 years.

"It has been a tremendous season for Lauren," O'Leary said. "I don't know what more you can say. She's a Tewaaraton nominee for a reason."

Other than senior midfielder Lisa McKenna, who started the game but was forced to the sideline with an injury, all of the members of Yale's senior class were on the field as the game ended: Levin, Myers, midfielder Lara Melniker, defenseman Ashley Dent and goalkeeper Casey Littlefield, who came in with one-eleven left to play.

"I know how hard we've worked," Levin said of her class. "We've been here four years, and you have this bond with your class from the struggles we've all been through. Some of our teammates who haven't been able to play as much in games, they've worked so hard in practice, and it really meant a lot."

Ending with the seniors on the field was particularly meaningful because of the way the class rallied the team after the defeat at Penn in the team's first Ivy League game. That loss could have started a downward spiral, because it left Yale with virtually no margin for error -- any more losses might have doomed the Bulldogs' post-season chances.

The Class of 2007 ensured that the lessons from the 2006 season, in which the Bulldogs were 3-3 after losing to Penn and finished out of the running for a tournament bid at 9-7 (3-4 Ivy), paid dividends this year. The Bulldogs' 6-1 league record leaves them all alone in second place in the league (Penn finished 7-0, beating Brown Saturday afternoon in Providence). The mark tied the school record for wins in Ivy League play, set in 2003 -- the last time Yale made the NCAA tournament.

"After the Penn game the turning point came from the seniors," O'Leary said. "They came together and they vowed they wouldn't have what happened last year happen again. The underclassmen bought into that. This was accomplished behind a strong senior class -- whether they're on the field playing or not, they all lead in their own ways. They just did a great job of pulling us together and not settling. I have to attribute a lot of this success to the senior class."

Whether those seniors will get to play again remains to be seen, as several of the teams vying for at-large bids still have games left to play while the Bulldogs sit and wait. The NCAA tournament selection show will be on Monday, May 7 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on ncaasports.com.

The Bulldogs will continue practicing until then.

"At this point we've done all we can do, which is a lot -- going 13-3," Levin said. "We just need to stay focused for the next two weeks. We want to make sure we work hard and keep this momentum that we have with nine straight wins."

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