PRINCETON, N.J. - The Princeton women’s soccer team showed why it’s one of the best in the Ivy League as the Tigers came out firing, scoring four first-half goals in downing Lehigh 6-1 on Wednesday evening. Jen Hoy, the Ivy League’s leading scorer, paced Princeton with her third hat trick of the season. Freshman Paige Elliott scored her second goal of the season for Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks will look to bounce back Sunday when they travel to Army for a big Patriot League tilt.

 

“[Princeton] is a team who’s competing for a championship, which is something we strive for,” said Lehigh head coach Eric Lambinus. “It was good for us to see that and see that level of urgency, style of play, quickness and intensity. It was good to see, so hopefully we can match that moving forward.”

 

Princeton took a 1-0 lead at the 8:02 mark as a Lauren Lazo shot was saved by Lehigh junior Ali Griffin, but Jen Hoy corralled the rebound and roofed home her 12th goal of the season.

 

Griffin made a nifty save less than 10 minutes later as a high rocket from Caitlin Blosser looked ticketed to go under the crossbar, but the junior netminder punched the ball out of harm’s way to force a corner kick. Griffin then made a save off the ensuing corner to keep the score at 1-0.

However, not long after, Hoy took a feed from Alison Nabatoff down the left side and found the back of the net to make it 2-0 at 20:57. Lazo made it 3-0 at 27:35 when she found the inside of the left post, despite a hard-charging Griffin. Liana Cornacchio finished off two quick passes in the box at 32:05 for Princeton’s fourth goal heading into halftime.

 

Princeton added a pair in the second half before Elliott put home her second goal of the season. Senior Isabelle Li made a nice pass to Ellliott on the right side, just outside the box. The freshman did the rest, firing it into the top left corner of the goal to make it 6-1.

 

The Tigers held the final edge in shots, 20-3 while corner kicks were tied at four. Li and junior Paige fired the Mountain Hawks’ other shots for the game. Griffin finished with four saves in the first half while freshman Ani Nahapetian had three in the second.

 

Lehigh heads to Army on Sunday for a crucial Patriot League matchup which kicks off at 1 p.m. The Mountain Hawks then have three consecutive league home games to conclude their regular season, beginning next Friday (Oct. 19) vs. Bucknell at 7 p.m.

 

“We need to play with the urgency that we’ve played in some previous game,” said Lambinus. “We need to play with consistency over 90 minutes and we need to execute a lot better. We were defending pretty well, but today we definitely didn’t defend the way that we’d like to. There are some special players [on Princeton] and pretty good speed out there which we struggled to compete with. But we can get better, and hopefully we can give Army a good game.”