ITHACA, N.Y. – A back-and-forth battle between Princeton and Massachusetts ended in favor of the Minutewomen, with Eileen McDonald scoring the golden goal to take a 13-12 win Friday evening at Schoellkopf Frield. With the win, UMass improves to 19-1 on the season and advances to the second round to play the winner of the Cornell-Canisius matchup at noon on Sunday at Schoellkopf.
 
Both teams scored in the last 15 seconds of regulation, with the Minutewomen taking the lead before Princeton's Olivia Hompe sent it to overtime with 0.8 seconds left on the clock. Princeton got its 12 goals from 11 different goal-scorers, with Hompe getting two. Callie Santos tallied three for UMass, including the Minutewomen's last two goals of regulation.
 
Princeton (11-6) scored just 24 seconds into the game, shortly after corralling the opening draw, but UMass responded with four straight goals to take the lead. The Tigers bounced back with a pair to cut the deficit back to one with 18:53 left in the half.
 
Holly Turner's first goal of the day gave the Minutewomen a 5-3 lead, but Princeton responded again, with Amanda Leavell netting her first of the afternoon and Nonie Anderson knotting the score at five. Princeton regained the lead with 6:35 left in the first half on Anna Menke's goal.
 
The Tigers got their first two-goal lead of the day early in the second half. UMass scored three straight to take back over, but the Tigers quickly tied it at eight on a nifty scoop shot by Abby Finkelston. The teams continued to trade tallies, with the Minutewomen knotting the score at 11 with just under three minutes left.
 
UMass was awarded a free-position shot in the waning seconds, and Hannah Murphy used the opportunity to dish off to Callie Santos, who fired home a low shot to give the Minutewomen a 12-11 lead with 14.6 seconds left, but the Tigers won the resulting draw and quickly worked their way down the field, and Anderson found Olivia Hompe in front of the cage. Hompe turned and shot to tie it with 0.8 seconds left.
 
The first three-minute half of overtime was fruitless, but Eileen McDonald won it for the Minutewomen 37 seconds into the second half.
 
UMass improved to 2-1 in NCAA Tournament overtime games all-time and punched its ticket to Sunday's second-round game.

POST GAME QUOTES
UMass Head Coach Angela McMahon
I thought it was such a great game. Both teams were really battling out there. Princeton is such a great team – very well coached. Our team was down in the second half and I love our resiliency in coming back and taking the lead. Then having to take it again, and again. Overtime is tough with it being sudden-death now. We thought we had a great stand there on defense … and I'm so proud of my team right now. It wasn't the perfect game but in the big moments when we needed to step up, they did.
 
They were throwing a lot of things at us defensively so we were having trouble getting rhythm and finding the right looks, so in those scenarios [at the end of the game] we were able to get good looks. We knew they were taking Erica [Eipp] and Callie [Santos] out of the game at the end, but we're confident in all our attackers and their ability to score goals. They've been doing it all season long so it's not surprising that Eileen [McDonald] ends up scoring the game-winner because she's been scoring big goals all season long.
 
Princeton Head coach Chris Sailer
It was a great game. It was incredibly hard fought by both teams. You have to give credit to UMass, they won the draws in overtime. We got the look we wanted, we got a stop. But you have to be able to win draws in overtime. I'm really proud of our kids. They really competed hard, and played well, and it was just a great game. It's tough to lose, but it was a great game.
 
UMass Senior Eileen McDonald
It was a tough game for sure. Back and fourth and it was all about the little things, ground balls, draw controls. We just worked hard, chipped away, and came out on top. We have been focused all season on bouncing back from any goals or any plays that have been off, so we try and think of it in the mindset of bouncing back from every play.
 
On surrendering early goals in each half to Princeton ...
We try to get together and calm ourselves down and stick to the details and execute our game plan. That's all we can do really.
 
On the game-winning goal ...
It was just a motion [offense]. We were just looking for whoever was open and I saw an opening and took it to cage.