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Princeton University Athletics
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Shackford Previews '10 Season; Tigers Open at Rutgers Friday
September 01, 2010 | Women's Soccer
Princeton (0-0) at (24) Rutgers (2-1) • Friday 9/3 • 7 p.m. • Live Stats • Verizon FiOS 1 (Tape)
Seton Hall (1-1) at Princeton • Sunday 9/5 • 1 p.m. • Live Stats • GoPrincetonTigers.tv
The 31st varsity season for the Princeton women's soccer team will begin Friday with a familiar foe and continue Sunday with the return of a familiar face.
Friday's 7 p.m. contest at Rutgers' Yurcak Field will be the 27th meeting between the teams with the Scarlet Knights leading the series 13-10-3. Princeton's last win came in 2007, a 5-1 victory on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, before Rutgers won two years later in its first visit to Roberts Stadium.
Sunday's 1 p.m. game will put Princeton and Seton Hall on the field for the first time since 2002, when Princeton's all-time leading scorer Esmeralda Negron '05 was in a Tiger uniform. Negron is now an assistant coach for the Pirates on the opposite side of a series that has seen Princeton take seven of the eight all-time meetings, all since 1994.
As is the case every year, the Tigers will play their first games against teams that have already played a full 90. Rutgers, ranked No. 24 by the NSCAA and coming off a run to the 2009 NCAA second round, will bring a 2-1 record into the weekend, upending Stony Brook and Colgate by a combined score of 7-1 before suffering a 1-0 loss to Monmouth last Sunday. Seton Hall is 1-1, losing to Fordham and defeating Fairleigh Dickinson the past two weekends.
While the two Big East schools have had a couple opportunities to answer their preseason questions, the Tigers will soon have their first chance to figure out the makeup of the 2010 team.
Princeton's defense has been solid the past two seasons, allowing 0.50 goals per game in 2008 and 0.78 last year with 18 shutouts between the two campaigns. No team has scored more than two goals in a game against the Tigers at any point in the last two seasons, and the Tigers ended 2009 by allowing one goal in the year's final 692 minutes.
As they look to keep the defense strong, the Tigers return two-time first-team All-Ivy League goalkeeper Alyssa Pont for her senior season as well as Alison Nabatoff a year after her defensive talents were noticed for an Ivy League Co-Rookie of the Year honor. While keeping those two, along with 17-game starter Kim Menafra for her junior season, the Tigers lose four-year starter Melissa Seitz '10 from the backfield.
The midfield is the thickest part of the roster with 13 Tigers carrying the designation. Seven players had assists last season, with sophomore Stephanie Iantorno leading the facilitators with three helpers. Sophomore Jen Hoy, also the team's leading scorer, had two assists in 2009.
Finding sure strikers figures to be the biggest question for this year's team, with Hoy scoring three goals in 2009 to lead the 10 Tigers who found the net a year ago. Princeton returns seven of those scorers, with senior Lauren Whatley having scored a pair last year and sophomore Caitlin Blosser, junior Barb Previ, sophomore Rachel Saunders and senior Alexandra Valerio each scoring one.
The Tigers will have some key differences in this year's schedule from past seasons, starting with the presence of 10 home games. That total is the largest among regular-season contests since 2001. That year was also the first time in Julie Shackford's now 16-season run as Princeton's head coach that the Tigers hopped a flight for a regular-season game, something the team has done in alternating years since. This season, the Tigers will be keeping it local, leaving the Garden State only to play in New York, Connecticut and Washington, D.C.