This Day in Dartmouth History: April 23
4/23/2020 2:00:00 PM | Women's Lacrosse, Women's Tennis, Athletics
April 23, 2011 — Women's Tennis takes down Harvard to clinch a share of Ivy title
The 56th-ranked Dartmouth women's tennis team won the program's first-ever Ivy League title with a 4-3 victory over No. 55 Harvard in front of a huge crowd at the Crimson's Murr Center.
The Big Green finished the regular season tied with No. 34 Yale with a record of 6-1 in conference play to end the season as co-champions.
Harvard made it 2-0 right off the bat by taking the doubles point and winning at the top spot in singles, but sophomore Christina Danosi '13 got Dartmouth on the board with her 6-2, 6-2 win at the No. 6 position. The Crimson soon bumped the score to 3-1, but that was when the momentum started to swing in the Green's direction as senior Ryan Reichel '11 earned a 6-4, 6-3 victory at No. 4 and freshman Melissa Matsuoka '14 also won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, to make even the match.
Senior Georgiana Smyser '11, who had dropped the first set, 6-3, continued to fight at No. 5 and eventually came back to take the next two sets, 6-3, 6-3, clinching the match and the league title.
April 23, 2005 — Women's Lacrosse wins clash of ranked unbeatens in league play to clinch the Ivy League title
In a battle of two top-five teams in the nation, both of which were unbeaten teams in Ivy League play, the fourth-ranked women's lacrosse team defeated No. 3 Princeton, 12-9, to win the 2005 Ivy League Championship.
Sophomore Jen Pittman '07 had a career day, scoring four goals in the game to push the Big Green's Ivy League mark to a perfect 7-0, while handing the Tigers their first Ivy loss in more than two years, snapping a school-record 16-game win streak in league games in the process. In doing so, the Green also bested their New Jersey counterparts for the first time since 1999.
The win pushed Dartmouth to its best start in program history, unbeaten at 13-0, and gave the program its 10th Ivy League title and the conference' automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. The championship was the first outright crown for the Green and White since 2000 and the first of any kind since sharing with Princeton and Yale in 2003.
Tied 6-6 at the half, Dartmouth used a strong second-half surge to put them over the top for the home win and league title. While scoring more frequently in the second half, they also anchored by junior Devon Wills '06 in goal, who made five-of-her-six saves in the final 30 minutes behind a defense that caused 17 turnovers to ice the game.
April 23, 2017 — Women's Tennis beats Princeton to win a share of the Ivy League Title
Exactly six years to the day since winning its first Ivy League title, the 44th-ranked Dartmouth women's tennis team clinched its second crown with a 5-2 victory over Princeton in the regular-season finale. The Big Green ended up sharing the title with Harvard and Cornell, which also ended the year with five Ivy wins.
By comparing head-to-head records against the next-best team outside of the three-way tie, Dartmouth was awarded the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by virtue of its win over Penn, a team that defeated both the Crimson and the Big Red.
The first point of the afternoon went to the Green and, even though the Tigers tied the score with a win at No. 5 singles, Dartmouth went on to take three straight matches to clinch the victory. Freshman Allison McCann '20 put the Big Green back on top at No. 6 by cruising to a 6-3, 6-0 victory, and senior Jacqueline Crawford '17 followed that up with a dominating 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 2.
The clinching point came courtesy of junior Kristina Mathis '18 with her 6-3, 6-1 victory on court three. The teams continued to play the remaining two matches, and although the Green dropped one, senior Taylor Ng '17 won her superbreaker at the top spot.
