Women’s Lacrosse: Versatile and Valuable

Elizabeth George ’19 went into last year’s postseason meeting with her lacrosse coaches ready to make her case for moving to midfield, the position she’d played as a freshman and sophomore. But before she could start, the coaches told her they envisioned her on attack for her senior year.

“I think there was definitely a bit of convincing, but it doesn’t take much to get on the same page as them and believe their plan,” George said. “It was funny. It was ultimately good in the end.”

Good for George and good for her team, which is 8-3 overall and 2-1 in the Ivy League heading into its final regular-season home game against Harvard April 13. George leads the Tigers in points (50), goals (34), and draw controls (51) and ranks second in assists (16). She will graduate as one of Princeton’s best all-around players.

“I think our team looks up to her as a person in crunch time they can count on,” said Princeton head coach Chris Sailer. “She’s a kid who wants the ball.”

After starring for McDonogh in Owings Mills, Md., the No. 1 high school team in the country, George played field hockey in the fall of her freshman year at Princeton and then started in half the lacrosse games before shifting her full attention to lacrosse.

Princeton moved George up to attack for the first time as a junior and her numbers climbed again to a career-high 43 goals. She also had 57 draws as a junior, fourth all-time at Princeton for a single season, and set a school record with 11 draw controls in a game against Columbia. George didn’t start taking the draw until she came to Princeton.

“I took them some freshman and sophomore year, but not as many,” she said. “It was definitely more of an emphasis in college for me to learn draw and draw technique.”

George has come on strong each year. She made the Ivy League All-Tournament team as a sophomore and was Ivy Tournament MVP and first-team All-Ivy last year.

Four games into her final season, the Princeton coaches moved George within the attack alignment, asking her to play behind the cage — a spot more for a feeder than a scorer.

“It’s a different position, but it’s still fundamental lacrosse,” George said. “Keep your head up, work your dodge, and hopefully things will open up.”

She produced a career-high four assists in a 15–14 win over Stony Brook. She’s already tied her assists total for the previous three years and can still score as well. She notched her 100th career goal March 23 in the middle of another four-assist effort.

“My role has definitely evolved,” George said. “The best way to come into college is to not have super-specific expectations. ... I think I had a good mindset that there might be different possibilities for me as far as my role on the team in college, and now it’s really proven true.”

This is an expanded version of a story from the April 24, 2019, issue.