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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Emily Behncke Named Ivy League Player of the Year; Three More Earn All-Ivy
November 09, 2005 | Women's Soccer
Nov. 9, 2005
PRINCETON, N.J. - For the fourth time in the last five years, a Princeton Tiger has been named the Ivy League Player of the Year for women's soccer. In 2005, with a league-leading 14 goals and 30 points, senior Emily Behncke was the choice of the league's head coaches to receive the conference's top individual honor, the conference office announced Wednesday.
The honor caps a career that ends with Behncke in third place on the Princeton career points list, with 90, and third on the school's all-time goals list, with 39. Behncke's 14 goals this season were five more than anyone else in the league and were the second-most all-time in Princeton single-season history behind two-time Ivy League Player of the Year Esmeralda Negron, who knocked in 20 in 2004. Her 0.88 goals per game ranks 14th in the nation ending the regular season.
In a season-ending stretch that all but clinched the Ivy League Player of the Year honors, Behncke scored eight goals in the last five games, including her first career hat trick against Cornell, to put the Tigers in a position to challenge for the Ivy League title after losing two of their first three conference matches. Behncke scored her last collegiate goal in the season finale at Penn to help put Princeton in a position to have one other league score fall its way on the final day for the Tigers to advance to a seventh straight NCAA Tournament, but the team came one break short of accomplishing its postseason objective.
Behncke follows Negron (2003, 2004) and Heather Deerin (2001) as Princeton players who have won the Ivy League Player of the Year honor during the 11-year tenure of head coach Julie Shackford. Lynette Prescott won the league's first such award in 1982, and Dodie Colavecchio won co-Player of the Year honors in 1985. With Behncke on the first-team All-Ivy is sophomore midfielder Diana Matheson and senior defender Romy Trigg-Smith. Matheson was the team's second-leading scorer this season with five goals including three game-winners and seven assists, while Trigg-Smith added two goals from her backfield role. Both Matheson and Behncke were unanimous first-team all-league selections, the only two unanimous choices in the conference. It is the second first-team award for Matheson and Trigg Smith and third for Behncke, who was also second-team all-league as a freshman in 2002 when she was named the Ivy League Rookie of the year. She becomes the eighth player in Ivy League history to win Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year and be named first-team all-conference at least three times during her career.
Earning honorable mention status was senior Maija Garnaas, who started all 16 games and had four assists from her midfield position.
The Tigers finished 8-6-2 overall and 5-2-0 in the Ivy League in 2005, winning seven of their last nine games and taking the Ivy League race to the last day of the season after starting the year 1-4-2. Princeton finished second in the league standings with 15 points, just one point behind Yale.