Going Back - Oct. 25, 2004

This is the second installment of the new "Going Back" series, in which TigerBlog is "going back" to games that predate the blog itself to write what he might have written had it existed.

There will be one per week, though not always on the same day of the week. 

A week ago, on Wednesday, he wrote about the 1996 Princeton-UCLA NCAA tournament men's basketball game. You can read that one HERE.

One issue that TB has is whether or not he should be saying that the date is the one the game was actually played or the date the blog would have been posted. He's going with the day it would have been posted. 

For this week's "Going Back," he's not sure what date that would have been. Would he have written this the Monday after it was played, or the Tuesday after, going with the football game Monday. Princeton lost that football game to Harvard that year, so he thinks this would have been the blog for Monday, Oct. 25, 2004:

TigerBlog stood at the scorer's table at Lourie-Love Field and wondered if this was all his fault.

Of course he didn't actually think that. Still, was there something karmic going on there? 

Here was the Princeton women's soccer team, ranked ninth in the country, averaging nearly three goals per game, the 26th-best total in Division I. And here was the pregame story TB had written, the one that pointed out that Princeton hadn't scored a goal at home against Harvard since 1992, more than a decade earlier.

That was five straight shutouts at the hands of the Crimson on Lourie-Love Field.

Certainly that streak would end on this night, right?

So what that Harvard came into the game ranked 26th in Division I in scoring defense? This was a Princeton team that was rolling, having outscored its opponents 31-4 to date and having put up 11 goals in the last three games.

Princeton's goal would come early, and then the floodgates would open. That's what TB thought at least.

Former Princeton men's basketball coach Bill Carmody used to call it "The Whammy," which is sort of the concept of a jinx taken to another level. Was TB guilty of The Whammy?

Shot after shot flew at the Harvard goal. None of them went in.

Princeton was dominating - but could not score. But Harvard did, getting one late in the first half, and it was 1-0 Crimson at the break.

There was something else in the pregame story. A Princeton win would start to open up the Ivy League race. A Harvard win would tie the two teams for first place.

TB was starting to feel uneasy. Something just felt off about the whole night. That's how sports work sometimes. There are just some of those nights.

Was this going to be one of them?

The second half started - and it was more of the same. With each shot that didn't go in, Princeton added to its overwhelming edge in the stats, but not on the scoreboard. And TB got more and more antsy.

Was there really a reason why Princeton couldn't score against Harvard?

Then there were 15 minutes to go. And then 10. And then five. And then two. Still 1-0 Harvard.

Princeton had a 20-6 edge in shots to that point. And nothing to show for it. This was going to sting.

Ah, but then a sign of life. Kristina Fontanez fed the ball into the area to Diana Matheson, who was trapped by three Harvard defenders. The ball then squirted to Emily Behncke, who took one dribble to her left.

Wait. She was free. Would this be it, finally? Yes, it would. Behncke's shot was well-placed, settling into the net and touching off a wild celebration. 

Tie game, 1-1. With 41 seconds to play.

It was like the clouds lifted and the sun began to shine on Lourie-Love, even though it was nighttime. 

Oh, but it was far from over.

The game went to overtime, and then into a second overtime. Harvard had an incredible chance to end it when Brittany Meeks, who had scored her team's goal earlier, suddenly found herself one-on-one with Tiger goalkeeper Emily Vogelzang, who didn't hesitate. In Vogelzang's words after the game "If I sat back, it was going to be a goal," and so she didn't, instead charging out to Meeks and smothering the shot.

It was three minutes later when Diana Matheson took the ball and played it to the right side to Behncke, who crossed it past the Crimson goal to a wide-open Esmeralda Negron on the backside. Negron knocked it in, giving her a fourth career overtime goal, moving her within four goals away from the school career goal - and way more importantly making it a 2-1 final.

Just like that, Princeton went from a team that was 41 seconds away from being in a first-place tie with Harvard and wondering if that early-season momentum was gone to a team rolling to an Ivy League championship and wondering what might be ahead for what could be a special postseason run.

If it does come to that, Princeton will look back to Behncke's goal in the last 41 seconds of regulation and then Vogelzang's save and Negron's game-winner as the turning point of it all. 

On a season that has already had its share of special moments, none has been more so than what happened Saturday night on Lourie-Love Field.