Another Week, Another Three Points at Stake for No. 24 Princeton, Now at Cornell

Saturday, October 27

Ithaca, N.Y.

2:00 PM

Princeton University

Cornell

Tomi Kennedy and Princeton will head to Cornell looking for another three big standings points.

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Another Week, Another Three Points at Stake for No. 24 Princeton, Now at Cornell

October 22, 2018 | Women's Soccer

Two weekends are left in the Ivy League women's soccer season, and if the Tigers can turn their two-game league win streak into four, they'll be Ivy League champs and headed to the NCAA tournament. The first of those two remaining needed wins will be sought Saturday at Cornell.

No. 24 Princeton (9-3-2, 3-1-1) at Cornell (1-11-1, 0-5), Sat., Oct. 27, 2 p.m. | ESPN+ | Live Stats

• Penn leads the Ivy with 13 points, with Harvard and Princeton three points back at 10. Princeton, thanks to last Saturday's 2-0 win over Harvard, has the tiebreaker over the Crimson, and wins this weekend and next weekend against Penn will give Princeton no worse than a tie for the top as well as the tiebreaker over Penn for the Ivy auto bid to the NCAA tournament.

• Princeton has an RPI this week of 26, the best by 32 spots in the Ivy over Penn at 58. The Tigers re-entered the United Soccer Coaches top-25 at No. 24 and will play their first game as a ranked team since Sept. 22 at Yale, when Princeton was ranked 25th. The ranking is Princeton's highest since the Tigers were No. 23 in the Sept. 4 poll.

• Princeton has a 22-game win streak against Cornell with the Big Red's last win over Princeton coming in Princeton in 1995. The Tigers have won 11 straight in Ithaca, last losing there in 1994.

• Mimi Asom has four goals against the Big Red, with her first career hat trick coming in 2016 in Ithaca before scoring one of the goals in Princeton's 2-0 win over the Big Red last year. Tomi Kennedy is the only other current Tiger with a goal, getting one in the 6-1 win in Ithaca in 2016. Natalie Grossi played all of last year's shutout win and part of the 2016 win, giving up the only Big Red goal in that game before sharing keeper duties with Noelani Kong-Johnson. Meghan Kennedy played a half in 2016 in goal for Cornell, giving up three goals, before playing the full 90 last year. No current Big Red player has scored a goal against Princeton.

• Courtney O'Brien became the seventh TIger to score this season when she had both goals in the 2-0 win over Harvard last Saturday, helping her net Ivy Co-Player of the Week honors. She's scored in six games in her career with five of those being two-goal games.

• 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.

• Climbs up program record lists and chases for milestones continue for Tiger players and coach Sean Driscoll. A win would give Driscoll his 50th win at Princeton, making him the third Tiger coach to reach that number and put him one game closer to overtaking the program's first coach Bob Malekoff, for the second-most wins by a coach in program history. Malekoff won 52 times from 1980-84 and Driscoll's predecessor, Julie Shackford, had 203 wins from 1995-2014. A win over Cornell would give Driscoll his 50th win in his 70th game (would be 50-13-7), tying Malekoff for the fastest to 50 (50-15-5). Shackford had her 50th win in her 89th game (50-35-4).

Mimi Asom stands in fourth place on Princeton's career points list with 91, three back of Linda DeBoer '86 (94) with former teammate Tyler Lussi '17 in the top spot at 122 points and Esmeralda Negron '05 second with 112. On the career goals list, Asom will break a third-place tie with DeBoer with her next goal, as both now have 41. Lussi leads that list with 53, ahead of Negron's 47. Against Harvard, keeper Natalie Grossi tied Kelly O'Dell '84 with her 23rd career shutout, which is good for a tie for fourth on the Ivy's career list with O'Dell and Brown alum Kathryn Tarnoff. Those ahead of Grossi on the Ivy list include Dartmouth alum Kristen Luckenbill (29), Brown alum Kathy Kostic (27) and Columbia's Ali Ahearn (25).