The golden goal gets all the glory, but 92 minutes of stingy defense paved the way for the Quakers' title-clinching victory Saturday night at Rhodes Field.
In what promised to be a physical, emotionally-charged showdown for Ivy League supremacy, the Red and Blue effectively repelled the Tigers' attack throughout the match, consistently frustrating Princeton's offensive focal point, senior Diana Matheson, while keeping goalie Sara Rose from having to make a single stop.
Coming into Saturday's match, Matheson, who missed the season's first seven games to play with the Canadian national team, led the Ivy League with a 2.38 points-per-game average and had contributed to 13 of Princeton's previous 18 goals.
Rather than "man-marking" Matheson - assigning one defender the full-time task of trailing her - Penn relied on a collaborative effort from its midfielders and defenders to keep Matheson's open-field opportunities to a minimum.
"Diana is a world-class player," said Penn coach Darren Ambrose, "but we still felt that a combination of players would be able to do it."
Bearing the brunt of that collective burden was midfielder and Penn team captain Natalie Capuano, whose tight coverage prevented Princeton's star from ever finding enough space to create a scoring chance.
"We knew that Matheson was their engine," Capuano said. "Coming into this game, we just wanted to be aware of where she was and communicate a lot. We weren't gonna man-mark her."
"We had a tough time getting hold of the ball and to Penn's credit, they battled really hard, especially in the midfield," Princeton coach Julie Shackford told The Daily Princetonian.
One of Penn's concerns entering the match was Matheson's effectiveness off of free kicks.
On Saturday, however, the Penn defense only allowed Matheson two set-piece opportunities, and she missed the net entirely on each.
The Quakers' conditioning also played a pivotal role as the match reached its latter stages.
While the Red and Blue looked stronger as the clock wound down, Princeton's marginal first-half scoring bids gave way to offensive malaise in the second frame.
"The defending we did in the first half didn't take too much out of us," Ambrose said. "We have a fit and healthy team, so we didn't need to make a lot of substitutions. I think Princeton started to wear down a little bit."
Of course, the backbreaker for Princeton was the substitution that Ambrose did make, pulling the League's leading scorer, sophomore Jessica Fuccello, to begin the overtime period and replacing her with freshman midfielder Kristin Kaiser.
By cashing in for the golden goal in the third minute of overtime, Kaiser validated both her coach's maneuver and her team's unwavering defensive intensity with the thrust of her head.
