Women's Water Polo | 4/25/2015 8:40:00 PM

PRINCETON, NJ – For the third straight season, Princeton University has stopped the Hartwick water polo team in the CWPA semifinals. The 12^th ranked Tigers jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the first half and won by a final count of 14-7 over the 20^th ranked Hawks Saturday at Princeton's DeNunzio Pool.
           
Hartwick, which was led by Nikolina Mihajlovik's (Mississauga, ONT) two goals on the day, plays on Sunday in the CWPA third-place game against the University of Michigan, which lost in overtime to Indiana University in the day's other semifinal.
           
The Hawks had a difficult time in the game solving United States National Team goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson, who finished with three saves in the opening quarter. The Tigers would score four times on the other end of the pool in the first eight minutes for a 4-0 lead.
           
Two more Princeton goals in the first 1:22 of the second quarter and the hosts led 6-0. Mihajlovik finally beat Johnson 20 seconds later to cut the deficit to 6-1. Three more Tiger goals increased the margin to eight, 9-1, with under a minute left before halftime. Blanca Anton Cuesta (Madrid, Spain) snuck one in with two seconds left to make it 9-2 at the break.
           
Hartwick out-scored Princeton 2-1 over the opening seven minutes of the third quarter to inch closer. Zsofia Polak (Dunaujvaros, Hungary) and Lara Dendy Young (Cape Town, South Africa) each scored for the Hawks and the deficit was six, 10-4. But two Princeton tallies with under 55 seconds left pushed the Tigers' advantage to eight with just one quarter to go.
           
Princeton scored two goals to the Hawks' one in the first three minutes of the final period. Katie McKenty (Auckland, New Zealand) got the Hawks' goal. Mihajlovik made the score 14-6 with her second goal of the day with 2:17 remaining. Rebecca Armstrong (Pasadena, CA) closed out the scoring with 34 ticks left.
           
Michaela Davies (Cronulla, Australia) made six saves for the Hawks in cage. Johnson would stop eight in the first three quarters for the Tigers. Helena van Brande made one save in the fourth.
           
Ashley Hatcher and Taylor Dunstan each scored three goals apiece to lead the Tigers offensively.
           
Hartwick (19-19) closes out its season tomorrow against the 18^th ranked Wolverines. In their only meeting of the season, Michigan won 11-6 on March 7. UM leads the all-time series with a 17-7 record against 'Wick.  
           
A victory for the Hawks would give them 20 or more victories in each of the last 15 seasons.