Updated: NCAA Bid, Ivy Title At Stake Saturday for No. 24 Princeton at '52 Stadium

Saturday, November 3

Princeton, N.J.

7:00 PM

Princeton University

Penn

The Princeton women's soccer Class of 2019: Noelani Kong-Johnson, Ali Whiting, Samantha McDonough, Mimi Asom.

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Updated: NCAA Bid, Ivy Title At Stake Saturday for No. 24 Princeton at '52 Stadium

October 29, 2018 | Women's Soccer

One team has outscored its opponents 23-9 this season. The other has outscored its foes 30-4. One team is already an Ivy League champion. The other wants to add a 2018 title to its collection. And, after Saturday's game, at least one will be headed to the NCAA tournament.

(24) Princeton vs. Penn, Saturday, Nov. 3, 7 p.m., Class of 1952 Stadium | ESPN+ | Live Stats | Free Admission

• The scenarios are simple. Penn has 16 Ivy standings points, Princeton has 13. No other Ivy team can get to 16, so when Penn beat Brown last Sunday, the Quakers clinched at least a share of the Ivy League title. A win or tie Saturday sends the Quakers to the NCAA tournament and gives Penn the outright Ivy title. A Princeton win gives the Tigers a share of the Ivy title, and Princeton would get the NCAA automatic bid by virtue of the first tiebreaker, the head-to-head win.

• Princeton is seeking its 10th Ivy League title and first consecutive since taking three in a row from 2000-02. Penn clinched its fourth Ivy title, joining titles won in 2001, 2007 and 2010.

• Both teams have posted plenty of shutouts this season. Penn is on a shutout streak of 205:20 since giving up its only goal in its last 10 games, and Princeton is on a shutout streak of 281:31 since allowing the decisive goal in the team's only Ivy loss this year, to Brown on Oct. 6.

• With last weekend's 2-0 win at Cornell, Princeton junior keeper Natalie Grossi broke the program's career shutout record, with her 24th. She is fourth on the Ivy's career shutout list and would move into a tie for third with 2000 Columbia alum Ali Ahern with her next shutout. The Ivy record is 29, held by 2001 Dartmouth alum Kristen Luckenbill.

• With her next goal, Mimi Asom would move past Linda DeBoer '86 to stand alone in third place on Princeton's career points list. Former teammate Tyler Lussi '17 holds the record with 122 points, followed by Esmeralda Negron '05 at 112 and DeBoer at 94. On the career goals list, Lussi leads at 53, followed by Negron's 47 and Asom third at 42. Lussi, who did so in all four years, and Asom, who has done so in three, are the only players in program history with at least three 10-goal seasons. Asom has 11 this year, just one behind her 12-goal rookie season.

• Head coach Sean Driscoll recorded his 50th win at Princeton with the Cornell win, putting him at 50-14-7 (.754). He's the second-fastest coach in Princeton history to that number, reaching it in his 71st game while the program's first coach, Bob Malekoff, reached it in his 70th game. Driscoll is the third coach in program history, along with Malekoff and predecessor Julie Shackford, to reach 50 wins at Princeton, and Driscoll could pass Malekoff, at 52 wins, for the second-most wins in program history with a successful postseason run or early next season. Shackford had 203 wins in her 20 seasons.

• The Quakers saw the Tigers celebrate the Ivy title on their field last year, with Vanessa Gregoire '18 getting the only goal in the 34th minute of a 1-0 win. Princeton was able to hold the title outright later in the night when Columbia tied Harvard when a win over the Crimson would have shared the title with Princeton and given the automatic bid to Columbia, Princeton's only Ivy loss last year.

• Princeton leads the all-time series against the Quakers 18-10-4, and while the current Tigers have never lost to Penn, before last year's 1-0 win, two of the last three meetings were ties. In 2015, the teams played to a scoreless draw in Philadelphia to keep Princeton from a 7-0-0 Ivy season and knock the Tigers out of the NCAA rankings, when they had been No. 24 entering the game. Emily Sands, Penn's leading scorer this year with eight goals, had Penn's goal in the 1-1 tie in 2016 scoring in the 27th minute to tie it up in a matchup between Saturday's probable keepers, Natalie Grossi and Kitty Qu. Those two were in goal again last year in Princeton's 1-0 win, but Sands will be the only active player on either team to have scored against the other.

• Princeton's Courtney O'Brien and Penn's Paige Howard share an alma mater, Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles.

• It'll be the last regular-season game for the Princeton women's soccer Class of 2019: Mimi Asom, Samantha McDonough, Ali Whiting and Noelani Kong-Johnson.

• Princeton has outscored its opponents 23-9 this year and ranked second in the nation at the start of this week in shutout percentage, getting the shutout in 11 of 15 games, or 73.3 percent. Penn has outscored its opponents 30-4 and ranks first in the nation in shutout percentage (.800), first in goals-against average (0.259), and first in save percentage (.930). Keeper Kitty Qu ranks third nationally in GAA (0.303) and fourth in save percentage (.917).

• The Tigers lead Penn in the RPI rankings, with Princeton 32nd this week and Penn 58th.