No. 14 Princeton Heads To No. 12 Harvard In Matchup Of Ivy Unbeatens

Saturday, October 23

Cambridge, Mass.

12:00 PM

Princeton University

#11 Harvard

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

No. 14 Princeton Heads To No. 12 Harvard In Matchup Of Ivy Unbeatens

October 22, 2021 | Field Hockey

PRINCETON vs. HARVARD
Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021 • noon
Berylson Field • Cambrdige, Mass.

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Harvard Website

Princeton is 4-0 in the Ivy League field hockey standings. Harvard is 4-0 in the Ivy League field hockey standings. Every other team in the league has at least two Ivy losses.

Princeton is the highest-scoring team in the league. Harvard is the stingiest defensive team, in the league and in Division I. Princeton is ranked 14^th. Harvard is ranked 12^th.

What else is there to say?

Princeton vs. Harvard
Five storylines

4-0 vs. 4-0
Princeton and Harvard are both unbeaten in the Ivy League. Yale, Cornell, Penn and Brown are all 2-2.

In other words, the winner of the Princeton-Harvard game will take a major step in the direction of the league championship and especially the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. For the winner of this game, one win in the final two weeks would guarantee a trip to the postseason. For the other team, should it not get the automatic bid, then it would firmly be on the NCAA tournament bubble.

History lesson
You have to go back to 2011 to find a year when a team other than Princeton or Harvard won even a share of the league championship. You have to go back to 1993 to find a year when neither Princeton nor Harvard won a share, and that was when Penn won it.

All-time, Princeton has won 26 of the 50 Ivy League championships awarded (between outright and shared titles). Harvard has won five titles.

The teams have alternated winning the championship every year since 2015. Interestingly, the road team has won each of the last five regular season games. In 2018, Princeton lost at Princeton in the regular season but then won at Princeton in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals.

Princeton leads the all-time series 42-7-2.

Stat story
Princeton leads the Ivy League with 40 goals and with 2.98 goals per game. The Tigers also rank seventh in Division I in scoring offense.

Harvard has allowed only five goals all season, which is the fewest in Division I. Princeton has three players who individually have at least five goals: Beth Yeager (16), Sammy Popper (6) and Ali McCarthy (5). Yeager's 16 goals are a Princeton freshman record.

No team has scored more than one goal in a game against Harvard. Princeton has not been shut out this year and has scored at least two goals in 10 of its 13 games.

Common opponents
If you're looking for some clue as to how this game will go based on common opponents, forget it. There's not much there in the way of insight.

Princeton and Harvard have one non-league opponent in common, and that's UConn. Princeton defeated the Huskies 2-1 in overtime, while Harvard suffered its only loss of the year to the Huskies, though it was in penalty strokes after a 0-0 tie through regulation and overtime.

As far as the Ivy League goes, Princeton and Harvard have both played Penn, Yale and Dartmouth. Princeton outscored those three by a combined 14-2, and Harvard outscored those three by a combined 10-2. Both teams beat Yale 3-1.

Streaking
Princeton is 8-5 after having won its last five games, most recently defeating then-No. 5 Penn State in overtime Sunday.

Harvard has won seven straight since the UConn game.