First-Place Showdown Set for Saturday Night at Roberts

Saturday, October 14

Princeton, N.J.

7:00 PM

Princeton University

Columbia

Carolyne Davidson and the Tigers will host Columbia Saturday night.

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

First-Place Showdown Set for Saturday Night at Roberts

October 10, 2017 | Women's Soccer

The last three games in the Princeton-Columbia women's soccer series have gone to the home team, a trend the 11th-ranked Tigers would like to continue when the teams, both 3-0 in the Ivy League, meet Saturday night at Roberts Stadium.

Columbia (7-4-1, 3-0) at #11 Princeton (11-1, 3-0), Saturday, Oct. 14, 7 p.m. | Video (Ivy League Network) | Live Stats

Both Princeton and Columbia are perfect in Ivy play as the league season heads into its fourth of seven weekends, and the Tigers and Lions each lead third-place Yale, whose only league loss so far was to Princeton, by three points.

Rankings
Princeton is in the United Soccer Coaches poll for the fifth straight week, finding itself at No. 11, its highest rank since ending the 2004 season at No. 4. Princeton was ranked 20th, 16th, 14th and 11th in the previous four weeks' polls. The Tigers also kept their spots in the two other polls and the RPI, standing sixth in the NCAA RPI, No. 14 in the latest SoccerAmerica poll and No. 11 in the latest TopDrawerSoccer poll.

Ivy Weekly Honors
Courtney O'Brien scored three times last week and won the Ivy League Player of the Week honor. O'Brien had Princeton's second goal in a 4-0 win at Bucknell and both goals in a 2-0 win at Brown, scoring 56 seconds apart in the 75th and 76th minutes to rally the Tigers past the Bears 2-1. Princeton has now won five of the seven honors this season, with O'Brien and sophomore classmate Abby Givens earning two apiece and sophomore goalkeeper Natalie Grossi winning one.

Records
The Tigers are already climbing up program record lists this season. Princeton's nine shutouts are the sixth-most in a season in program history and most since 2008. The 2000 team posted 13 shutouts with the 2004 team posting 12 and the 1981, 1985 and 2008 teams turning in 10 clean sheets apiece.

Junior Mimi Asom enters the weekend with 26 goals and 57 points for her career, tied for the seventh-most career goals in program history with Amelia Reyes '01 and Diana Matheson '08. Three more goals will put her alone in sixth place, ahead of Lauren Lazo '15 (28), with the top five players all with at least 36 goals. Asom's former teammate, Tyler Lussi '17, reset the program scoring record last season, concluding her career with 53 goals.

Asom's 57 points are tied with Reyes for the 10th-most in a career in program history, and three more will put her past Nancy Foot '92 and Dana DeCore '00 for eighth place. Lussi reset the program's career points record last year at 122.

Senior Vanessa Gregoire has 24 career assists, third-most in program history and just two behind Lazo and fellow Canadian Matheson (26) for the record.

The Coach
Sean Driscoll has the highest winning percentage in program history, upping it to .771 after Saturday's win at Brown. At 35-9-4, he is close to becoming the third-winningest coach in program history, standing only behind predecessor Julie Shackford (203), the program's first coach Bob Malekoff (52) and the program's third coach Tom Griffith (36).

The Series
Princeton leads the all-time series with Columbia 21-7-4. Princeton is 8-0-2 at home against Columbia since the Lions' last road win in the series in 1995.

Columbia won 2-0 last year in New York with current junior Rachel Alexander as the lone Lions returning goal scorer from that game. Lions senior Natalie Ambrose had the Columbia goal in Princeton's 3-1 win at Roberts in 2015, and classmate Holly Neshat had the lone goal in Columbia's 1-0 win in New York in 2014. Asom had one of the three Tiger goals in the 2015 win, and while none of the current Lions keepers has played against Princeton, Grossi got the start in goal last year for the Tigers in New York.

Stat Rankings
Princeton finished last weekend ranked second in the nation in goals-against average at 0.25, fourth in save percentage at .914, fourth in shutout percentage at .750, and sixth in winning percentage .917. Grossi was third nationally in GAA (0.273), third in save percentage (.909) and seventh in shutouts (eight). Givens 12th in goals per game (0.82), 11th in points per game (2.0), 20th in total goals (nine) and 23rd in total points (22).

Columbia was eighth nationally in shots on goal per game (8.92) and 16th in goals per game (2.42). Anderson was seventh is shots on goals per game (2.5), ninth in shots per game (4.92) and Neshat was 23rd in goals per game (0.73).

Best Starts
Princeton is 11-1 for the fourth time in program history, joining 1980 (12-0), 2002 (12-0) and 2004 (11-1). If the Tigers can get to 12-1, it'd also be the fourth time, joining 1980 (13-0), 2002 (12-1) and 2004 (12-1).

On Columbia
The Lions have a 381:17 shutout streak and have seen their last two Ivy League games go to overtime before Lion game-winning goals. Emma Anderson and Natalie Neshat co-lead Columbia with eight goals apiece, and junior Sophie Whitehouse has a 1.14 GAA while playing 867 of the team's 1,122 minutes.

Ivy Leaders
Princeton and Columbia finished last weekend as the Ivy's top two scoring teams with 29 goals for Columbia and 27 for Princeton, but the Tigers' three goals allowed this season are six fewer than any other Ivy team. It'll also be a matchup of the league's top three scorers with Princeton's Givens leading the league with nine goals and Columbia's Anderson and Neshat close behind with eight. Princeton's O'Brien is one of three players at seven goals.

The Goal Scorers
Seven Tigers have scored this season, combining for 27 goals. All but three of those goals have come from players able to return next year, with a pair of non-fowards in Mikaela Symanovich (two) and Natalie Larkin (one) accounting for the Class of 2018's goals. Three of the seven have scored their first career goals this season, with sophomore O'Brien scoring seven, including three last week and two at Brown, to stand two ahead of Asom and two behind Givens in the team's top three in scoring, while rookie Olivia Kane scored her second goal of the season Tuesday night at Bucknell and classmate Carolyne Davidson scoring against New Hampshire on Sept. 10 to add her name to the list.