The Dartmouth Sports Weekly 04/13/15

4.13. 15

LACROSSE FALLS TO PRINCETON 16-5

MEN’S TENNIS WINS TWO STRAIGHT

TAYLOR NG ’17 LIFTS WOMEN’S TENNIS ELIZA MCDONOUGH, NATALIE CANTAVE, KATE HERRINGTON, ALISON GUH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 2

BY THE NUMBERS

7 Goals allowed in the third period by men’s lacrosse

10 Consecutive games won by softball

4 Goals by Adam Fishman ’15 against Princeton

500 Ivy League games coached by baseball coach Bob Whalen

Men’s lacrosse falls to Princeton in blowout

B y haley gordon The Dartmouth Staff

Men’s lacrosse took the field against No. 14 Princeton University in front of an enthusiastic crowd Saturday afternoon. The Big Green fought hard, but ultimately fell to Princeton’s powerful offense by a score of 16-5, bringing their overall record to 3-6 and their Ivy record to 1-3.

Play began with a Dartmouth possession after a ground ball battle from the faceoff, leading to a scoring chance for Jack Connolly ’16 who shot and narrowly missed the net. Maintaining possession, the Big Green worked the ball around the net until Jack Korzelius ’18 spotted an open Adam Fishman ’15, and Fishman scored in the first two minutes of gameplay. Fishman would go on to score again in the first period and came away from the game with four goals total.

This opening play set the tone for the Big Green’s first half, as the team managed to limit the Tigers’ offense and stay in the game with possession of ground balls and intensity of game play. The men ended the first period trailing Princeton two to four and held the Tigers to just one additional goal in the second.

“You have to contain their offense,” head coach Brendan Callahan said of Princeton. “They have a very good offense, very good personality and a good scheme there — and then you have to score. That was our main focus: containing what they were doing and we knew we’d have to outscore them.”

Despite the strong opening, Dartmouth had to battle for every possession against Princeton.

Princeton won the faceoff after the Big Green’s initial goal and took the ball right into the defensive zone to challenge the net. While goalkeeper Blair Friedensohn ’16 made an impressive stick save and fended off a rebound challenge, Princeton’s Gavin McBride would even the score at one only a few plays later.

“We were talking, we were very

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02.23.15

Monday, April 13, 2015

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ELIZA MCDONOUGH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Though the Big Green’s defensive efforts kept Princeton University at bay early, the TIgers scored 11 goals in the final half.

loud,” defenseman Austin Duncan ’16 said. “Whenever somebody needed help, we were there. [Friedensohn] really stepped up in the first half, he made a few big saves and we were able to get the ball out quick. Other than that, I think we played well together and we were just playing tough.”

Faceoffs would consistently challenge the team throughout the game, and the statistics reflect a close battle between the two players who took the most: Dartmouth’s Phil Hession ’15 and Princeton’s Sam Bonafede.

While Princeton came away with five of the seven faceoffs in the first period, the Big Green edged ahead by the end, winning 14 of 25.

“He’s great at getting those possessions in the middle of the field for us,” Callahan said of Hession.

“He always battles.”

Equally important as gaining possession from faceoffs is gaining possession off of ground balls.

“Really it was how we competed on the ground. In lacrosse that’s the big competitive stat there,” Callahan said. “The ground balls were tied in the first half. They come out in the second half and watch a couple big ground balls lead to turnovers and that’s what a good team does, they put it to us in those situations.”

The ground balls were 15 to 15 at the end of the second period, but the final numbers saw Princeton edge ahead to take a 30-29 lead in ground balls won. The Big Green’s real difficulty came from turnovers,

with a total of 21 to Princeton’s 14.

“I think that we have to continue to get better at the things that secure us possessions,” Callahan said. “So it’s our stick protection off the ground, as we’re getting into our offense it’s the unforced turnovers.”

Callahan said that it’s inevitable that a team will turn over the ball while playing on defense, but a focus for the team moving forward will be cutting down on unforced turnovers so the team can continue to have opportunities to put pressure on their opponents.

Fishman echoed his coach’s emphasis on possession and added that the offense will work on pacing for their next game.

“We did great with our spacing,” Fishman said. “Our pace was something that I think we can continue to improve upon, especially when the ball is on the ground.

Sometimes you’re going to hit a pipe, sometimes the ball is going to come out of your stick, and we need to bring that pace element back into our game where we’re fighting on every ground ball.”

The sun came out during halftime, and things appeared to be looking bright for the reenergized Dartmouth team as they only trailed by two goals at the beginning of the third. Princeton took to the field swinging, though, causing several turnovers via checks and taking advantage of low hanging Big Green sticks.

Princeton would go on to score seven goals in the third period,

dominating all over the field. Cam Lee ’16 managed to score the lone goal of the period for the Big Green after a hard and low shot beat the Princeton goalkeeper. The Tigers were led by Mike MacDonald and Kip Orban who scored three and two goals in the period, respectively.

In the fourth period, the men’s team looked to make up some lost ground, beginning with Fishman’s fourth goal of the game, assisted by Adam Hull ’15 just a minute and 40 seconds into the final stretch.

Despite efforts from both the offense and defense, Princeton would go on to score four unanswered goals to close the game. With just 10 seconds remaining in the game, Princeton sophomore Matt Brophy notched his first career goal to deliver the coup de grace to the Big Green’s hopes.

When asked about what contributed to the loss, Callahan said, “For us, it was being able to control the ball, which we struggled with, and when you do that you keep giving a good offense too many chances.

You have to try and limit their chances and that was our focus and it played out well in some parts and other parts it wasn’t and any time it wasn’t they were able to take advantage of it.”

The men’s lacrosse team won’t have to wait long before taking to the field, though, as they travel to Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday to take on the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where the team will play in hope of overcoming their current three-game losing streak.

Monday, April 13, 2015

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

Women’s tennis splits weekend outings B y CHANELLE QI

After a narrow loss to No. 56 Princeton University 4-3 on Saturday, the No. 37 women’s tennis team edged out the University of Pennsylvania 4-3 on Sunday on the back of a match-clinching three-set victory by Taylor Ng ’17 at No. 1 singles.

The match against the Princeton team (11-7, 5-0 Ivy), which sits atop the Ivy League, proved close from the very beginning, as the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles teams fought tooth and nail in their matches.

After staying close to begin doubles play, the No. 1 duo of Ng and Kristina Mathis ’18 was bested by a score of 8-6, and the No. 2 doubles team of co-captains Katherine Yau ’16 and Akiko Okuda ’15 also played a tight match, ending with a loss of 8-5.

With the team entering singles play down 0-1, the Big Green would need to mount a comeback in order to seal a victory. No. 5 player Okuda was the first to come off the courts, falling in a tough match against Princeton sophomore Dorothy Tang 7-6, 6-4.

No. 4 Jacqueline Crawford ’17 responded by bringing in the first victory of the day for the Big Green, dispatching her opponent 6-2, 7-5. Despite the victory, the women’s deficit grew to 3-1, as No. 2 player Yau lost her match in two close sets 6-4, 7-6.

The women’s team refused to quit fighting, though, and Ng continued her brilliant season as the top seed for the Big Green, extending her record in the position over the weekend to 20 wins out of her 21 matches.

After dropping her first set 6-4, Ng controlled the rest of the match and ultimately took the win 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, bringing the Big Green back to within one point of the Tigers.

No. 3 Mathis also encountered a difficult match, battling through a first-set defeat to take the second 7-5 and com-

pletely dominate the third set 6-0, tying the overall match score at 3-3.

“I definitely went through a lot of ups and down [in my match],” Mathis said. “The momentum changed a lot, and being down 1-4 in the second set was really negative for me. However, I began to hear a lot of cheering from my teammates, which pumped me up and allowed me to finish the match strong.”

With the score tied, the outcome of the match fell on the shoulders of No. 6 Julia Schroeder ’18. Like the two previous matches that ended in three sets, the deciding match against Princeton led to extremely close points and little margin for error.

After dropping the first set 7-5, Schroeder won the second by the same score to keep hopes of a win alive. Princeton Senior Katie Goepel ran away with the deciding match in the third set, however, and secured the victory for the Tigers with her 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 win.

“Everyone fought really hard, and every match was extremely competitive,” Crawford said. “[Schroeder] especially handled the pressure of being a deciding match really well. It was a tough loss, but we were ready to bounce back afterwards.”

The women went on the play Penn outdoors on Sunday. The Big Green reversed its fortune in the doubles matches and quickly took control in its matches against the Quakers, which would ultimately prove critical in its 4-3 victory over Penn.

The No. 1 doubles team of Ng and Mathis won 8-3, and the No. 3 doubles team of Schroeder and Lexxi Kiven ’18 won 8-5 to give the Big Green the early advantage.

The 1-0 lead provided the women with momentum going into singles matches.

Yau quickly finished her match at No. 2, ending with a score of 6-0, 6-3 and putting the women ahead 2-0. The two

teams split the next pair of matches as No. 5 Okuda fell 6-1, 6-0, followed by No. 3 Mathis winning her match in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.

The women’s 3-1 lead soon disappeared, though, as No. 4 Crawford and No. 6 Schroeder both fell in straight sets with respective scores of 6-4, 6-2, and 6-2, 6-4.

The deciding match of the day was also possibly one of the most nerve-wracking singles matches that the Dartmouth team has encountered this season. The Big Green’s No. 1 player Ng fought back from a 5-6 deficit to win the first set in a tiebreaker against Penn’s Sol Eskenazi, the 2012 Ivy League Rookie of the Year and three-time First Team All-Ivy Singles and doubles player.

After winning the first set, Ng looked primed to run away with the match, jumping out to a 5-2 lead. Eskenazi, however, fought back and forced a second set tiebreaker. Ng couldn’t hold on to take the match in straights, so the hotly contested match went to a deciding third set.

In the third set, Ng continued to fend off her opponent’s aggressive baseline play, but the two competitors remained neck-and-neck as the deciding third set went to a match-deciding tiebreaker.

By remaining aggressive and attacking the net, Ng clinched the match and cemented the team’s overall win with her 7-6, 6-7, 7-6(5) victory. The match lasted over three hours, testing Ng’s mental and physical endurance.

“We work a lot on forgetting past points and concentrating on the present,” Ng said. “It’s easy to dwell on being ahead in a set and then losing, but I think moving forward and focusing at the point at hand helped the most.”

The women resume conference play next weekend, as they host Brown University on Friday at 2 p.m, followed by a match against Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on Sunday.

SW 3

THE

RUNDOWN Baseball SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

COLUMBIA PENN DARTMOUTH CORNELL HARVARD BROWN PRINCETON YALE

10-2 10-2 8-4 6-6 5-7 4-8 3-9 2-10

19-11 15-11 10-19 9-20 16-15 8-20 6-24 9-18

IVY

OVERALL

11-1 8-4 6-4 5-5 4-4 4-8 2-8 2-8

18-13 17-16 15-14 11-19 12-18 10-15 8-17 7-16

Softball SCHOOL

DARTMOUTH HARVARD PENN

COLUMBIA PRINCETON BROWN CORNELL YALE

Men’s Lacrosse SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

CORNELL PRINCETON YALE BROWN PENN DARTMOUTH HARVARD

3-1 3-1 3-2 2-2 2-3 1-3 1-3

9-3 7-4 9-2 8-3 5-6 3-6 6-6

Women’s Lacrosse SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PENN PRINCETON CORNELL HARVARD YALE BROWN COLUMBIA DARTMOUTH

4-0 4-0 3-2 3-2 2-3 1-4 1-4 1-4

10-2 9-3 8-4 5-6 7-6 6-6 4-8 1-10

Women’s Tennis

KATE HERRINGTON/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The women’s tennis team had two tight scrapes over the weekend, with both the Princeton and Penn University outings coming down to the final set.

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PRINCETON COLUMBIA CORNELL BROWN DARTMOUTH YALE PENN HARVARD

5-0 3-2 3-2 2-2 2-2 2-2 1-4 0-4

11-7 11-7 9-7 9-8 15-5 8-9 7-8 7-9

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 4

Monday, April 13, 2015

Men’s tennis sweeps weekend, defeating Princeton and Penn B y alexander agadjanian The Dartmouth Staff

Needing to rebound after two disappointing home losses to open the Ivy League season, the No. 54 men’s tennis team entered this weekend on a four-game losing streak. It left with two consecutive 5-2 wins, taking down No. 30 Princeton University on Saturday and the University of Pennsylvania on Sunday. Due to its strong weekend, the Big Green (11-10, 2-2 Ivy) is now primed to be a force in conference play down the stretch.

Seeking to disperse his team’s top talent rather than cluster it in one doubles team, head coach Chris Drake made a change to his doubles lineup to start the day against Princeton. Rather than sending out the No. 20 team of Chris Kipouras ’15 and Dovydas Sakinis ’16 as he did the prior weekend, Drake paired Sakinis with Brendan Tannenbaum ’16 for the No. 1 match and Kipouras with Max Schmidt ’17 for the No. 2 match.

“We thought [Sakinis] and [Kipouras] had been playing really well and had some confidence,” Drake said. “We wanted to see if we could spread that out through the lineup a little bit.”

The No. 2 doubles team got the Big Green on the scoreboard first, as the Kipouras and Schmidt duo — playing for the first time together this season — took the match 6-4.

Yet Princeton would quickly bounce back, as its No. 3 team won 7-5 after the Big Green pairing of Sam Todd ’15 and Diego Pedraza ’17, which lead 3-0 and 5-2 at different points in the match, could not thwart the Tiger comeback.

While the Big Green’s doubles pair maintained a lead for much of the duration of the No. 1 match and once stood at the brink of clinching the doubles point with a 5-4 edge, Sakinis and Tannenbaum faltered against the top Tigers duo, losing 7-6, and Princeton grabbed the doubles point.

Ultimately, Drake’s decision to alter the lineup paid off to some degree, as the Big Green was more competitive in the opening doubles matches than it was in its first weekend of the Ivy League season. For the fifth consecutive match, however, the Big Green entered singles play with a 1-0 deficit.

“It’s happened to us a few times where we had chances to win in doubles and lost, and then ended up losing a close singles match,” Drake said. “We talked in between singles and doubles about putting it behind us and getting ready to play on all six courts in singles. The guys showed a lot of resiliency to bounce back and did that in singles against a very good team — one of the higher

ranked teams in the league.”

Seeing his first singles action in two weeks, Pedraza was slotted into the singles lineup at the No. 4 spot on Saturday, and his return proved crucial on the comeback trail.

Coming off a loss in the No. 3 doubles contest, Pedraza posted a dominant effort in his singles match, rarely trailing as he was the first player on the court to win, taking the match 6-2, 6-2. In doing so, he swiftly knotted the overall score of the match at one.

“I think [the win] was important because we went down in the doubles point and I was playing a player that I had already played in the fall, and I had lost to him,” Pedraza said. “And I knew what I had to do, but being able to start strong with a lot of energy and provide the team with a quick win was key to put that point on the board and level the match.”

Shortly after Pedraza’s victory, George Wall ’17 overpowered Princeton freshman Diego Vives — who was previously undefeated in conference singles play — 6-4, 6-4 in the No. 5 singles match.

Ciro Riccardi ’18 extended the Big Green’s lead to 3-1, winning 7-6 in a first-set tiebreaker before clinching the No. 3 match with a 6-2 second-set win. In the No. 2 match, Kipouras found himself in a competitive struggle against his foe, but after winning a tight first set 7-5 and needing a tiebreaker to take the second 7-6, Kipouras was able to provide the definitive fourth point for the team and secure the match win.

“He’s a senior, he’s an experienced player, he’s a guy that has come through for us a lot over [four years],” Drake said about Kipouras.

“We have a lot of confidence in him, and he’s done a good job working hard to have himself prepared physically. He’s in great shape, and so I think that gives him confidence out there too.”

A 6-1, 7-6 loss by Schmidt at No. 6 singles and a 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 win by No. 53 Sakinis at the No. 1 position rounded out the day’s singles matches. The overall victory had already been secured, but Sakinis put a nice finishing touch on the Big Green’s first Ivy League win in notching his fourth-straight singles victory — prolonging his undefeated streak of three in conference play.

“I think we needed the win, especially because we did not have a very good start to the Ivy League season last weekend,” Pedraza said.

“To go down in the doubles point today having had many chances and to have all the guys who played singles, to have that energy to come back and be on top of it on every court and fight back from that was

NATALIE CANTAVE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The men’s tennis team stopped its troubling slide this weekend, grappling back to a .500 record in Ivy League play.

something that we have done all season, but it hasn’t necessarily paid off with results and wins. But I think today it did, and we’re very proud of that.”

Looking to build on the victory that snapped its four-game slide, the Big Green next traveled an hour southwest from Princeton to Philadelphia to take on the Penn Quakers. Yet again, the opening sets of doubles matches posed problems for Dartmouth. The No. 3 pair of Todd and Pedraza got broken early and never recovered en route to a quick 6-2 loss.

Yet the remaining two pairs on the court ensured that the Big Green would not suffer the fate of yielding the doubles point again. The No. 1 duo of Sakinis and Tannebaum tore through its opponent 6-2 to even the doubles round, and in a close No. 2 doubles match, Kipouras and Schmidt overcame an early deficit to win 6-4. For the first time in five matches, the men began singles with the comfort of only needing three wins to secure the team victory.

“I thought overall we came out a little bit flat in doubles, but they did a good job at [No. 1 and 2] of hanging in there, and [No.] 2 doubles did a good job under pressure at the end to close it out,” Drake said. “[Schmidt] served a good game under pressure at 6-5, [which got us] the point.”

The early going of singles play featured the peculiar result of Sakinis getting dispatched in his first set 6-1 by Penn senior Jeremy Court, but Sakinis responded emphatically to his potential first singles loss in conference play. Grabbing the second set 6-3, Sakinis then broke Court’s serve twice in the third set

to win 6-2 and complete his victory for Dartmouth’s third point on the afternoon — all the while bolstering his Ivy League singles record to 4-0.

Before Sakinis’s spirited comeback, Wall played a crucial role in the singles play development for the Big Green. After falling behind at No. 5 singles early on, Wall leapt ahead and broke his opponent’s serve to win his first set 7-5.

In doing so, he helped swing momentum back in Dartmouth’s favor after some poor early results on the other courts, as Big Green players had lost three of the four first sets played. Wall then easily prevailed in the second set 6-2 after jumping out to a 3-0 lead, giving the Big Green its first singles point and a 2-0 overall lead. The victory marked Wall’s second win in singles action over the weekend.

“At the start [in singles] they had a lot of momentum, they won three first sets [and] they were very close to winning another set at [No. 5] singles,” Drake said. “But [Wall] toughed it out, he’s a really tough kid, tough player, he hung in there.

Him getting that first set really helped.”

After Sakinis placed the team on the threshold of victory, Kipouras wasted little time in issuing the decisive blow. Having been the first Big Green player to notch a singles first-set win by a score of 6-4, Kipouras sealed the overall team win by outlasting Penn junior Blaine Willenborg 7-5 in the second.

That Dartmouth reached the requisite four points with only half the singles matches completed only further revealed its dominance on Sunday.

“Obviously it feels good to clinch the [team] match,” Kipouras said, after doing so for the second straight day. “I’m glad I can bring the final win for my team to push us to the [win]. I think I’ve gotten a lot of experience over the years, [and] I’m happy to have that experience and be able to use it in those kinds of situations.”

Although the match had been already decided, the remaining singles contests were played out.

After holding on his serve to win his first set 7-5 on a deuce point, Schmidt broke his opponent’s serve in the second set to key a 6-2 win and No. 6 match victory to extend the Big Green’s lead to 5-0.

The No. 4 and 3 matches did not fare as well for the Big Green, as Pedraza lost 6-3, 7-6 and Riccardi fell 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, respectively. The results brought the overall score to a 5-2 win for Dartmouth, as the team swept its second weekend of Ivy League action and evened its conference record at 2-2.

The men head into the weaker portion of its Ivy schedule ranked fifth in the conference standings.

This weekend’s upcoming matches will pit the Big Green against Brown and Yale Universities, who are tied for sixth in the Ivy League.

“The results were really very nice to get [over the weekend],” Kipouras stated. “We really had all spots come together and execute and play well — play the way we want to play.

That was big throughout against Princeton and Penn today. A lot of the guys know how to fight whether they’re up or whether they’re down, their ability to compete no matter what the situation is.”