March 20, 2004

Final Stats| Photo Gallery

The Yale women's lacrosse team handily defeated Ivy foe Penn 14-7 Saturday afternoon at Johnson Field in New Haven. This gives the Bulldogs their first Ivy win and puts them over .500 with an overall record of 3-2 (1-0 Ivy). Despite an intense, evenly matched first half, the well-conditioned Bulldogs dominated the second half of play to take the victory.

Yale jumped out to an early 3-0 lead over the Quakers (4-3, 0-1 Ivy) with Sophie Melniker, Alessandra Croffy and Katherine Sargent all scoring in the first seven minutes of play.

Chrissy Muller, Penn's leading scorer of the day with three goals, put the Quakers on the board with 19:06 left in the first half. Sarah Driscoll of Yale answered with a quick shot off of a Croffy feed, putting the Bulldogs up 4-1. Emily Cochran led a Penn comeback as the Quakers scored three straight to tie the score at four with 12:33 left in the half.

Miles Whitman put the Bulldogs back on top, scoring off of a free position shot at 9:37. Her goal was quickly answered by Muller, who tied the score again at 5-5. Whitman and Muller volleyed two more goals, but Whitman scored an unassisted goal with 10 seconds left to give the Bulldogs a 7-6 lead at the half.

Yale controlled the second half of play, scoring seven of the eight goals. Croffy and Whitman each added one more goal, while Melniker and Sargent added two more each. Junior defensewoman Meredith Mack had her first assist on the year, feeding a pass to Melniker who quickly scored with 9:51 left in the second half. Sophomore Carli Vogler scored her first goal of the season with an assist from Whitman with 6:21 left in the game.

Sophomore Lonnie Sarnell played all 60 minutes in goal for the Bulldogs and had 10 saves.

"They capitalized on each of our mistakes in the first half which we were able to eliminate in the second half. Defensively, to only allow one goal in the second half is tremendous," said head coach Amanda O'Leary. "We worked hard last week in Florida, with two-a-days every day, which really brought the team together and made them confident. Sophie Melniker played with as much heart as I've seen; she did a tremendous job."

Womenslacrosse.com currently ranks the Bulldogs 14th, moving them up five spots from their pre-season ranking of 19th nationally.

Yale will be on the road next week facing No. 13 Boston University on Wednesday and No. 9 Dartmouth on Saturday. Their next game at Johnson Field will be against local rival Fairfield on March 31 at 3:00 pm.

Written by: Emily Field '05, Sports Information Department