Win and wait. That was all the No. 12 Yale Bulldogs could do, so they went out and beat Cornell 13-8 Saturday afternoon on Senior Day at Johnson Field. Now they spend 15 days awaiting word on an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. The win is Yale's ninth in a row -- the Bulldogs have outscored their opponents 114-66 in that stretch –- and improves the team's overall record to 13-3, tying the school record for regular-season wins.

Not bad for a team that was 4-3 less than five weeks ago. As it turned out, the Bulldogs' only losses this season were all to teams currently ranked in the top 10, and they were by a combined total of 12 goals. Yale is currently one of only six teams in the country with 13 or more wins.

"From the beginning of the season we knew we had a lot of potential and we knew we really could go far," said captain Lindsay Levin. "At the start we struggled a little. We played really strong teams -– JMU, Notre Dame -– and we put up a good fight, but we always knew that we weren't willing to accept that mediocrity. We wanted to push harder and go further."

So after losing to Penn on Mar. 18 the Bulldogs went out and won nine games in a row, including victories over two teams currently in the top 20 (Dartmouth and Princeton). It has been 12 years since Yale last won that many games consecutively in a season, and 16 years since they beat the Big Green and the Tigers in the same season.

As has been the case throughout their turnaround, the Bulldogs won Saturday with a tenacious defense highlighted by 15 saves from junior goalkeeper Ellen Cameron.

"She was amazing today," said Levin. "When Cornell slipped through our D she made amazing saves, she had ground balls coming out of the goal … She was all over the place. There's nothing more you can ask. She puts her heart into every single game."

The Bulldogs, who started the week ranked No. 6 in the country in scoring defense (8.36 goals allowed per game), had some early lapses that enabled Cornell to jump out to a 3-1 lead in the first 9:17. Yale's lone tally came from sophomore defenseman Jenn Warden, who extended her goal-scoring streak to 20 games.

The Yale comeback began when sophomore midfielder Taylor Fragapane got the draw control after the third Cornell goal, then converted on a free-position shot.

"We're used to it –- it seems as if we've had to come back in every game," O'Leary said. "I don't think our team panics at all."

Cameron came through with a big save on a shot by the Big Red's Margaux Viola, and shortly after that junior midfielder Lauren Taylor fired in the game-tying goal. She now has a 24-game point-scoring streak.

Junior midfielder Kat Peetz capped the run with a pair of goals six minutes apart, the second off a nice feed from Taylor. That gave Peetz a career-high 28 goals for the season.

Those goals put the Bulldogs up for good, but Cornell (3-9, 2-4 Ivy) kept it interesting throughout. Viola scored to pull Cornell back within one before Fragapane (assisted by Taylor) and Taylor closed out the half with goals for a 7-4 lead.

Taylor's goal came with just 14 seconds left in the half, enabled by Levin's caused turnover in the Yale end and a ground ball pickup by senior attacker Marya Myers.

Cornell scored the first goal of the second half, but Taylor responded to make it 8-5 with 24:44 remaining. Then it was all Cameron, as she got her stick down to stop a free-position attempt by Noelle Dowd with 17 minutes left and stopped Deirdre Lafferty's shot from right in front after a nice feed by Courtney Farrell. Farrell, who entered the game tied for second on the team in goals with 18, was limited to just one on Saturday as she was marked by junior defenseman Jess Champion.

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2007-04-22