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Princeton University Athletics
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Yale to Serve as Women's Soccer's First Ivy Test Saturday
September 23, 2010 | Women's Soccer
PRINCETON -- A six-game, three-week sprint through the pre-conference schedule behind it, the Princeton women's soccer team will get its first Ivy League test of the 2010 season Saturday at Yale.
Princeton (3-3-0, 0-0-0 Ivy) at Yale (2-4-1, 0-0-0 Ivy)
Saturday, Sept. 25 at 4 p.m.
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The Ivy-opening visit to New Haven, which has the Tigers opening the Ivy League schedule against Yale for the eighth time in the last nine seasons, begins the annual seven-game, six-week gauntlet of all-important Ivy games that will end Nov. 6 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium against Penn.
When the game is played, Yale will become Princeton's second most common opponent to open the Ivy League season since the program's varsity inception in 1980. The Tigers will have faced Yale to start Ivy play nine times, beginning in 2000, second only to the 13 times Princeton opened with Cornell from 1980-1999. Princeton last opened Ivy play with a team other than Yale in 2007, when the Tigers faced Dartmouth.
All-time, the Tigers lead the series 20-10-2, and the road team has won the last three meetings.
In Yale, the Tigers will be facing a team that may have lost four of its first five matches, but did so against a highly challenging schedule. After opening the season with a 1-0 win against then-No. 16 Penn State in New Haven, the Bulldogs were on the wrong end of shutouts by Illinois, Duke, Connecticut and Boston College, three of which are in this week's NSCAA national top 20.
Over the last week, Yale rebounded with a 4-0 win over Sacred Heart and tied Syracuse 1-1 in its most recent match last Sunday. Senior Ayana Sumiyasu has started six of the team's seven games in goal, with the Sept. 9 2-0 loss to Connecticut as the only exception, and six players have split the team's six goals.
Princeton, which saw its game Wednesday night against Saint Joseph's nixed at halftime due to lightning strikes, followed a three-game, 10-goal spurt with back-to-back 1-0 losses against Long Island and Hofstra last weekend. Sophomore Kristin Watson has started the last four games in goal for Princeton, not including the suspended game against Saint Joseph's, and her classmates have accounted for 19 of the Tigers' 28 points this season with Caitlin Blosser (2G, 5A) and Jen Hoy (4G) leading the group.
With an Ivy game awaiting the Tigers each of the next seven Saturdays, Princeton will have three more non-league weekday games to stay sharp. The first of those will be Princeton's next home game, Tuesday against Fairfield at 7 p.m.