Second-Half Rally Not Enough

HANOVER, N.H. – With 66 goals in its last four games, No. 16 Dartmouth's offense was definitely on a roll heading into Saturday's matchup with Yale at Scully-Fahey Field. The Bulldogs also hurt themselves with 21 turnovers, including 12 in the first half. So even with a late rally -- and while holding Big Green leading scorer Greta Meyer without a goal -- Yale wound up on the short end of a 12-5 score.

Those 12 first-half turnovers helped Dartmouth (5-1, 2-0 Ivy League) outshoot Yale (4-5, 1-2 Ivy League) 22-5 en route to take a 10-1 halftime lead. The Bulldogs regrouped, outshooting (11-10) and outscoring (4-2) Dartmouth in the second half. It wound up being too little, too late.

“You can't give a team like Dartmouth that many shots and turnovers,” said Anne Phillips, Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Lacrosse. “We didn't control the pace of the game.”

Meyer, who came into the game with 15 goals and 12 assists, did not factor in the scoring of any of Dartmouth's first eight goals. She ended the day with no goals and two assists. The Big Green was also playing without Kat Collins, who was second on the team with 19 points, because she was sidelined by an injury suffered in the team's 17-10 win at No. 6 Syracuse last Wednesday. But three goals by midfielder Kirsten Goldberg, all scored in the first 22:11 of the game, spearheaded a balanced Dartmouth attack. Only a nice drive to the goal by sophomore attacker Caroline Crow for a Yale goal at 18:39 interrupted a string of 10 Dartmouth scores in the first half, including one in the final seconds.

Attacker Hana Bowers extended Dartmouth's lead to 11-1 50 seconds into the second half, but after that the Bulldogs settled down. Phillips kept searching for the right combination of players on the field, including the varsity debut of freshman defender Adrianna Amendola.

Fueled in part by a better job on the draw control -- Yale got four of seven draws in the second half, after getting just three of 12 in the first -- the Bulldogs began generating some offense of their own. Dartmouth was also intent on trying to run the clock, but the Big Green committed eight turnovers to give the Bulldogs some life.

Junior midfielder Logan Greer started Yale's run by scoring off a feed from sophomore attacker Winnie Call at 26:31 after a Dartmouth turnover. Less than three minutes later junior midfielder/defender Kaitlyn Flatley drove to the goal and scored despite being fouled. When senior defender Michele Fiorentino got the ground ball after a Dartmouth turnover and it led to a goal for senior attacker Jenna Block with an assist from Crow with 20:48 left, Dartmouth called time.

Call got the draw control after the Dartmouth timeout, but Yale had one shot go wide and then turned the ball over. Midfielder Dana Brisbane eventually scored on a free position shot to make it 12-4 with 16:50 to play.

Sophomore goalie Whitney Quackenbush made a pair of saves on shots from right in front by midfielder Hilary Smith after that, but the Bulldogs continued to be plagued by turnovers at inopportune times. Dartmouth, meanwhile, managed to run off just enough clock on each of its possessions to keep Yale from mounting more of a threat. Flatley scored on a free position with 5:16 to play, but time soon ran out on the Bulldogs. Quackenbush finished with 12 saves, her sixth double-digit save effort of the season. Dartmouth's Julie Wadland stopped five shots.

“It was a tale of two halves,” Phillips said. “We finally got the draw in the second half, possessed the ball and scored. Julie Wadland's a good goalie, but we scored five goals with very few offensive possessions.”

With the win, Dartmouth is one of three 2-0 teams in the Ivy League, along with Penn and Princeton. Brown beat Harvard Saturday, leaving the Bears, Bulldogs and Crimson all 1-2. Cornell, which is 1-1, hosts Penn Sunday. Columbia is 0-3.

Yale hosts New Hampshire on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

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