Women's Soccer Team Looks to Bounce Back at Harvard Saturday

The chase for the Ivy League title is on for the Princeton women's soccer team, which enters the fifth of seven weekends of play in second place in the league, three points back of Columbia.

#17 Princeton (11-2, 3-1 Ivy) at Harvard (7-7, 1-3), Sat., Oct. 21, 1 p.m. | Video (Ivy League Network) | Live Stats

The Tigers are coming off a 2-0 loss to Columbia at Roberts Stadium last Saturday that ended a five-match win streak and put Princeton in second in the Ivy standings, three points back with nine points left to get. Princeton is two points ahead of third-place Yale and Penn. Columbia is at Dartmouth this week and has Yale and Harvard at home over the final two weeks, while Princeton is at Harvard this week, followed by a visit from Cornell and a trip to Penn.

Rankings
Princeton is in the United Soccer Coaches poll for the sixth straight week, finding itself at No. 17, Princeton was ranked 20th, 16th, 14th, 11th and 11th again in the previous five weeks' polls. The Tigers slipped just one spot to seventh in the RPI after the loss to Columbia, were ranked 22nd by SoccerAmerica and 20th by TopDrawerSoccer.

Ivy Weekly Honors
Princeton players have been named Ivy League Player of the Week five times this season with three sophomores taking the honors. Courtney O'Brien and Abby Givens have won twice each with Natalie Grossi winning once.

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, standing at .755. At 35-10-4, 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
Harvard leads the all-time series with Princeton 25-11-1. The visiting team has won the last three games in the series, with the Crimson winning 1-0 last year and Princeton winning 2-1 in Cambridge two years ago. Each of the last three games has also been decided by one goal, with Harvard winning 5-4 in Princeton in 2014. Natalie Grossi is the only keeper on either side to play against the other, taking the defeat in last year's 1-0 Tiger loss, and Harvard senior Dani Stollar and Princeton junior Asom are the only active players to score against the other team. Stollar scored a goal in the 2014 5-4 Crimson win, and Asom had a goal in the 2015 2-1 Tiger win.

Stat Rankings
Princeton entered the week ranked eighth in the nation in goals-against average at 0.385, ninth in shutout percentage at .692, and 10th in save percentage at .884. Princeton's .846 winning percentage was 12th nationally. Grossi was ninth nationally in GAA (0.417), 14th in save percentage (.878) and 14th in shutouts (eight). Givens was 14th in points per game (1.83) and 18th in goals per game (0.75).

Harvard's strongest statistical rankings were also on defense, with the team ranking 53rd in save percentage at .835 and Danielle Etzel ranked 26th in save percentage at .868.

Best Records
Princeton's 11-2 record is its best through 13 games since 2004, when the Tigers were 12-1. The Tigers were also 11-2 or better through 13 games in 2002 (12-1), 2001 (11-1-1), 1989 (11-2), 1982 (11-1-1), 1981 (11-2) and 1980 (13-0).

On Harvard
The Crimson will be looking to break a scoreless streak of 215:41 when they face the Tigers after being shut out against Boston University and Brown following a 3-1 win over Cornell. Junior Leah Mohammadi has scored four of the Crimson's 13 goals this season and rookie Murphy Agnew has five of the team's 10 assists. Junior Etzel and senior Kat Hess have almost evenly spit the team's minutes in goal, with Etzel taking the first half of most games and Hess the second half, and with Etzel at 3-4 with a 0.70 GAA and Hess at 4-3 with a 1.13 GAA.

Ivy Leaders
Princeton is the Ivy's best in GAA (0.38), goals allowed (five) and shutouts (nine). Givens leads the league in points (22), points per game (1.83), goals (co-leader with Columbia's Natalie Neshat, nine) and goals per game (0.75, also co-leader). Grossi leads in GAA (0.42) and shutouts (eight).

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-forwards 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 to stand two ahead of Asom and two behind Givens in the team's top three in scoring, while rookie Olivia Kane has two and classmate Carolyne Davidson scored against New Hampshire on Sept. 10 to add her name to the list.

Score Early, Not Often
Princeton has given up five goals this season while scoring 27. All but one of those five goals allowed, and all of the last four, have come in the game's first 20 minutes. West Virginia scored in the 19th minute on Sept. 15, Brown scored in the 10th minute on Oct. 7, and Columbia scored in the 10th and 11th minutes on Oct. 14.

Calendar

Upcoming Events

Recent Results