Quakers lose title bid

F. Hockey falls to Tigers As the ball rolled off the end of Penn midfielder Emmy Hansel's stick and into the back left corner of the Princeton cage, hope was temporarily restored to the Quakers field hockey team. After 18 games,minus seven minutes, Penn had pulled itself within one goal of the Tigers, within one goal of the Ivy League championship. Down by a score of 2-1, the Quakers forced the action into the Princeton zone. But after two critical failed attempts off penalty corners, the 2-1 score stood up, and it was the Tigers who stood at center field accepting the Ivy League championship trophy. As the Ivy League champion, Princeton (13-3, 6-0 Ivy League) receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Penn (10-7, 4-2) had the heat on Princeton goalkeeper Liz Hill for much of the game. One minute, eight seconds into the contest, the Quakers got their first corner attempt -- and Hill made the first of many carnival saves. Senior defenseman Sue Quinn took the inbounds pass from forward Kara Philbin and rifled it towards the lower right corner of the net. Hill dropped down and made a sprawling kick save to deny Quinn. Penn freshman goalie Sarah Dunn put on a goalkeeping clinic of her own in the first minute. On successive Princeton corner attempts, Dunn swatted a waist-high shot wide left and deflected a head-high shot with her stick. "There was a lot of pressure on her," senior forward Abby Herbine said. "With the Ivy League championship and the NCAA tournament depending on this game, I can't even describe how well Sarah played." But with 4:47 to go in the first half, Tigers freshman midfielder Molly O'Malley broke the scoreless tie. The play started innocently enough. Princeton freshman forward Kirsty Hale carried the ball along the left sideline. Quakers senior defenseman Jessica Gilhorn had Hale pinned against the sideline at about the 35-yard line. But as Gilhorn back-pedaled to keep her position, she slipped. Hale sprinted around the fallen defender and got a point-blank shot off on net. Dunn charged out of the net and deflected the shot wide right. O'Malley got the rebound and put it into the back left corner of the cage to give the Tigers the lead. At the 27:23 mark of the second half, the Tigers went up by two goals. Off a Princeton corner attempt, Dunn made a spectacular butterfly-style save. But as she went down, she landed on the ball -- an infraction in field hockey. Because the ball was caught under Dunn's pads, the Tigers were awarded a penalty shot, a one-on-one shot against the goalkeeper. Senior midfielder Abigail Gutstein took the shot and placed it in the upper left-hand corner of the net. Dunn got a piece of the ball, but could not prevent it from going into the cage. Hansel's goal at the 7:05 mark gave the Penn players one last glimmer of hope. The Quakers were awarded a penalty corner at the 7:15 mark. Philbin inbounded the pass to Quinn, who could not get a shot off. Quinn did a little improvising and forced the ball back down to Philbin, who was positioned near the left post of the cage. With no shot, Philbin pushed the ball in front of the net. Hansel got control of the ball and punched it to the far left corner of the net to shrink the lead to one. The Quakers' one last chance at the Ivy title came with just 45 seconds remaining. Quinn picked off a Tigers pass and pushed the ball up to senior forward Amy Shapiro, who made two defenders miss at center field. Shapiro crossed mid-field and saw forward Tara Childs streaking down the left side of the field. Shapiro fired a pass upfield, but Childs missed it, and the ball rolled out of bounds. "The season had to end sometime and it had to end on a loss," Herbine said. "But that just as well could have been us getting the trophy. It was hard to see."