The women's lacrosse team won its first Ivy League game of the season Saturday, taking down Columbia in an action-packed game at Stevenson Field. The Bears defeated the Lions 11-10, giving Brown a 1-1 record in the Ivy League, 4-6 overall.
The game heated up quickly after the opening draw. The Lions' senior midfielder, Kate Lombard, scored the first goal of the game after just 36 seconds. However, Brown soon struck back. Kara Kelly '10 and Jesse Nunn '09 scored goals at 25:57 and 22:14 respectively, both assisted by Molly McCarthy '10. With a 2-1 lead, McCarthy got one of her own at 14:51 to increase the Brown advantage.
McCarthy finished the game with five points, four of them on assists. She attributed her success to the team's "great communication, midfield presence and good movement on attack ... my teammates made it easy for me to feed them."
Matching McCarthy with five points was Meghan Markowski '10. She scored two back-to-back goals 36 seconds apart, which increased Brown's lead to 5-1 with 12 minutes left in the first half.
Brown's momentum stalled from there. Rachael Ryan of Columbia scored an unassisted goal with seven minutes to go. Teammate Holly Glynn scored another goal 30 seconds later to make the score 5-3.
Even after Brown added another goal, Columbia's scoring spree didn't stop. By the end of the first half, the Lions scored two more goals to leave the score 6-5.
After halftime, Columbia took control from the beginning of the second half. The Lions ran off four goals in a row to take the lead, 9-6.
With only 21 minutes left in the game, Markowski helped bring Brown back once more. Taking a pass from Markowski, defender Kaitlyn Giles '10 scored the first goal for Brown in a 25-minute span. Giles' goal started the Bears on five-goal run, with Mimi DeTolla '08 and Markowski alternating tallies. With 12 minutes remaining, Brown boasted a two-goal lead, 11-9.
"Luckily, we dug ourselves out of a hole when Columbia was starting to get momentum," McCarthy said. "We really pulled it together as a team, everyone played their hardest and knew that the game was for our taking."
Columbia still refused to give up. Lombard scored one more goal for the Lions with nine minutes remaining to close within one. At 2:23, Ryan appeared to even the score, but her goal was disallowed for a crease violation. The Bears held the defense line and prevented the Lions from tying the score. After much back and forth play by both teams, the game eventually concluded at 11-10.
McCarthy said the key to Brown's victory was its ability to control most of the 50-50 balls and the draws. The Bears had 17 ground balls to Columbia's 14, and finished with 14 draw controls to Columbia's nine.
"(We also came) up with some huge plays defensively and capitalized on our offensive opportunities," McCarthy said. Goaltender Melissa King '08 made six saves in net.
"It was a fun game to play and great to have an Ivy win under our belt," McCarthy said.
The Bears will continue to work their way through the Ancient Eight when they travel to Ithaca, N.Y., to play against Cornell Friday.
