Tigers by a Whisker

If coaches around the league can be believed. The race for the Ivy League field hockey title will be as close this year as it was last year when one win separated fourth-place Princeton from first-place Yale.

Finishing the 1980 season with an overall record of nine wins, three losses and three ties, Princeton sported a 3-1-2 ledger in the Ivies. The Tigers tied Yale, 0-0, and tied number-two Dartmouth, 1-1, scoring one of three goals scored on Dartmouth all season. All but one player returns from last year's squad.

Graduation served the other three teams at the top of the league worse that it did Princeton. Number-three Penn lost a trio of players from last year's squad: Diane Angstadt was player of the year in the league last year and a member of the U.S. national team while Julie Heller and Deb Censist were both first-team All-Ivy.

Although veteran scorers, Nancy Lock and Lisa Romig will be back to co-captain this year's Quakers, coach Ann Sage thinks having a strong team will be a matter of filling the gaps graduation has left.

While Dartmouth coach Mary Corrigan concedes there will be "a lot of changes" in the team because of the loss of six starters, she thinks she has "a core of good players who are performing well at this point in the season."

Enthusiastic about sophomore goalkeeper Fran O'Donoghue, Corrigan said she "looks 100 per cent better" after a summer at field hockey development camp. Also sophomore Carol Trask, who tied for the honor of leading scorer on the team last year, will be back.

The defense, Corrigan said, suffered great losses from graduation. Those losses could hurt a team which has traditionally relied on superior backs. Dartmouth doesn't "score a whoe heck of a lot of goals." Corrigan says.

Officials at Yale are less optimistic about the Elis' chances this coming season, noting that the team has "potential to be good later in the season."

Like Dartmouth, Yale is a young team, having lost five starters to graduation. Coach Robin Cash thinks the team is strongest in the midfield, where the team's first, second and third leading scorers from last year's team will return this fall. Cash adds, that the midfield will have to score early on while the forwards develop.