Princeton, Harvard to Meet Saturday as Ivy Picture Clears

Win, win, win, and you're in. It's both that simple and that challenging for the Princeton women's soccer team, which enters the final three weeks of the Ivy season at 2-1-1 and with seven points and nine critical points still on the table.

Princeton vs. Harvard, Sat., Oct. 20, 1 p.m. | ESPN+ | Live Stats | Free Admission

If the Tigers win their final three games - versus Harvard, at Cornell and versus Penn - they'll be at 16 Ivy standings points and would win any possible tiebreaker, thanks to the win over Penn and the win over Harvard in that scenario. If the Tigers end up tied with Dartmouth, the only other team aside from Harvard and Penn that could get to 16 points, Princeton would have a win over Penn, and the Big Green's only loss in that scenario would be to Penn last weekend. Harvard and Dartmouth will play next weekend.

But, Princeton can't win three games at once, and the first of those is this Saturday against Harvard, which certainly won't forget last season's 6-1 Tiger win in Cambridge last season. Four Tigers scored the six goals, and three of the four are back with Mimi Asom (two), Courtney O'Brien (two) and Massachusetts native Eve Hewins. The win matched the largest win over Harvard in program history, along with a 5-0 win in 2006.

That earlier game, in 2006, was also the last time Princeton beat Harvard in back-to-back seasons, as Princeton will be aiming to do this year. Princeton beat Harvard three years in a row from 2004-06, and the Tigers' last home win over Harvard was in 2012.

Since round-robin play began in the Ivy in 1982, no team has won the Ivy title with two losses, and since the league began awarding three points for a win (formerly two) in 2005, 14 points (Penn, 2010, 4-1-2) is the fewest to win the league.

Along with the three goal-scorers for Princeton who are back from last year's game, Mimi Asom also had a goal in Princeton's 2-1 win at Harvard in 2015, and the Crimson's Linda Liedel, who had the lone Harvard goal last year, is back. Natalie Grossi, who played in goal in Princeton's 1-0 loss at Roberts in 2016 as well as last year, is back, as are both of Harvard's goalies from last year's game, Kat Hess and Danielle Etzel. Each keeper played a half, with four goals coming against Hess and two against Etzel.

Princeton players and coach Sean Driscoll continue moving up record lists and toward milestones. Mimi Asom has 41 career goals and 90 career points, tying her for third on the career goals list with Linda DeBoer '86 and behind only Esmeralda Negron '05 (47) and former teammate Tyler Lussi '17 (53), and tying her for fourth on the points list with Emily Behncke '06 and behind only DeBoer (94), Negron (112) and Lussi (122). Keeper Natalie Grossi moved into a tie for second on Princeton's all-time shutout list with 22, even with Jordan Rettig '01 and one behind Kelly O'Dell '84. She's also tied for sixth in Ivy history in shutouts with Cornell's Melissa Gambrell (1986-89) and one behind O'Dell and Brown's Kathryn Tarnoff (1987-90) for fourth. Grossi still has a year-plus to get the Ivy record, held by Dartmouth's Kristen Luckenbill (1997-2000) at 29. Driscoll, whose record is 48-13-7, is two wins away from becoming the third coach in Princeton history to win 50 games, joining Bob Malekoff (52, 1980-84) and Julie Shackford (203, 1995-2014).

On the Crimson, Leah Mohammadi has seven of Harvard's 16 goals, and Etzel (6-3-1, 0.65 GAA, 826 minutes) and Hess (0-2, 1.93, 280 min.) have split the time in goal. Harvard had a 2-4 start to the non-conference season but has since rebounded, going 4-1-1 since. Harvard had a four-game shutout streak to start the 4-1-1 stretch but has given up four goals over the last two games.

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