Receiving the feed from Miller behind the defense, Peterson went one-on-one against the Villanova goalie. Faking a shot, she drew the goalie out of the water before pulling the ball across her body and tucking it under the keeper’s arm for the goal.

“Goalies have a hard time moving laterally, so you can fake them one way and swim across the face of the goal,” Peterson said. “I can get across a lot faster than a goalie who is straight up and down. It’s one of the best things you can do instead of playing chicken with her.”

Freshman Arin Keyser’s second goal of the game iced the contest for the Crimson, preserving the two-goal margin of victory.

Princeton 11, Harvard 6

While the breaks tended to go in the Crimson’s favor against the Wildcats, the squad had no such luck on Saturday against the Tigers (22-7), against whom Harvard has historically performed poorly.

“Princeton beats us game after game, year after year,” Peterson said. “They’re like Brown.”

The Crimson has lost all five of its games against Brown this season.

Against the Tigers, Harvard had shots off the post ricochet into the goal mouth and not inside the cage, deflections sail wide and shots fly through the air only to be swatted down en route to the back of the net.

The Crimson attempted to isolate Princeton’s top two players, Adele McCarthy-Beauvais and Jenny Edwards, and force the rest of the squad to step up in order to win.

While the strategy worked in part, several times the skilled swimmers evaded their markers and found the back of the net.

McCarthy-Beauvais netted four goals, while Edwards rippled the mesh on two occasions.

“We were playing really great defense,” Peterson said. “But we mistakenly left [Edwards] open too often on the perimeter. That hurt.”

After keeping it close early, the Crimson began to fall behind as the second half wore on. Trailing by just a pair early in the third quarter, the Tigers blew the game wide open with a couple of counterattacks.

At the other end, Harvard hit rough seas as well, with a very physical Princeton squad manhandling Crimson swimmers as they attempted to establish position on the inside.

Interrupting attempted passes to the interior, the Tigers ensured that Harvard could not establish any fluidity in its offensive sets.