Women's Soccer Team to Host Yale Saturday on Pride Night

The Ivy League season hits the halfway mark on Saturday when the Princeton women's soccer team hosts Yale in a 7 p.m. start.

Saturday will be Pride Night, and the first 150 fans will receive a Princeton Pride scarf.

Ivy standings: Brown leads the league at 3-0 (nine points) and with a one-game lead over Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth at 2-1 (six points). The top four teams in the league will make the Ivy League Tournament, and the top team will host the Ivy League Tournament and win the Ivy League championship, while the tournament will be for the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid. Brown has the head-to-head tiebreaker over both Harvard and Princeton and will face Dartmouth on Oct. 28. Columbia, with four points (1-1-1), and Yale, Cornell and Penn, each with one point (0-2-1) are chasing Ivy tournament bids.

In the rankings: Princeton's No. 13 ranking in the Sept. 26 United Soccer Coaches poll marked the 23rd time in eight competitive seasons under Sean Driscoll that Princeton has been ranked in the organization's top 25. The No. 13 ranking was Princeton's highest since Aug. 7, 2018, when the Tigers were also No. 13. Princeton's highest ranking under Driscoll was on Dec. 5, 2017, when that year's team, which made the NCAA quarterfinals, finished the season ranked No. 7. Princeton has been ranked in the top 15 in 11 weeks under Driscoll, all in the 2017 and 2018 seasons, prior to the two September polls that had Princeton at No. 14 and then No. 13. Princeton's jump from not receiving votes in the rankings on Sept 12 to No. 14 on Sept. 19 was the highest for any team in the United Soccer Coaches Division I women's top-25 poll since Pittsburgh also jumped from not receiving votes to No. 14 in the Sept. 27, 2022 poll.

Talkin' about Tordin: Pietra Tordin has nine goals this season and has scored five game-winning goals. Tordin, who has already scored more goals this season than in her Ivy League Rookie of the Year season of 2022 (eight), is a goal away from turning in the 22nd season in program history, which dates back to 1980, in which a player scored 10 or more goals. It would be the 11th season in program history that saw a sophomore or younger score 10-plus. Esmeralda Negron '05 holds the program's single-season goal record of 20, set in her senior season of 2004, and Tyler Lussi '17, who put in 18 in her sophomore season of 2014, has the most in a season for a sophomore or younger. Tordin is also just a goal away from joining the top 15 in program history in career goals scored, as an 18th career goal would put her in a three-way tie for 14th in program history.

On offense: Princeton is averaging 2.36 goals a game so far this season, and at 26 goals, has equaled its goal total from all of last season. The last time Princeton ended a season with a goals-per-game average that high was 2015, when the Tigers finished scoring 2.42 goals a game. Princeton has seen 11 players score a goal this season, marking the second time in three seasons that Princeton has seen 10-plus goal scorers. In 2021, 14 Tigers scored a goal.

SOG against: Princeton is on pace to hold its opponents to a Driscoll-era low average of shots on goal per game. Through the season's first 11 games, Princeton is holding opponents to an average of 3.64 shots on goal per game. In Driscoll's first seven competitive seasons as Princeton's head coach, the Tigers have allowed between 4.0 (2017) and 5.2 (2019) shots on goal per game at season's end.

Between the posts: Junior Tyler McCamey has played most of the minutes in goal this season, accruing an 1.33 GAA while authoring solo or combined shutouts in each of Princeton's first three games of the season, against Monmouth, La Salle (shared) and Rutgers, and again at Penn on Wednesday.

Stat rankings: Following the Penn game, Princeton ranked 16th in the nation in assists per game at 2.55, 22nd in points per game at 7.27, and 23rd in total assists at 28, among top-30 rankings. Princeton's top-50 individual statistical rankings included Pietra Tordin's fourth-ranked five game-winning goals, 11th-ranked 2.00 points per game, 15th-ranked 0.82 goals per game, 15th-ranked 22 total points, 17th-ranked nine total goals, 18th-ranked 4.09 shots per game, and 39th-ranked 1.73 shots on goal per game. Yale ranked 86th with 1.82 goals per game as its top statistical ranking, and Ellie Rappole's three game-winning goals stood 22nd.

Coach Driscoll: Sean Driscoll is in his eighth competitive season leading Princeton. A three-time Ivy Coach of the Year (2015, 2017, 2018), Driscoll has led Princeton to Ivy titles in 2015, 2017 and 2018, NCAA tournament bids in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2021, the second round of the NCAA tournament in 2015, 2017 and 2021, and the NCAA quarterfinals in 2017. Driscoll's 90 wins are second-most in program history behind predecessor Julie Shackford, who had 203 wins in 20 seasons from 1995-2014.

Series history: Yale won last season's meeting 1-0 in New Haven on a sixth-minute Ellie Rappole goal. Maya Bellomo, a junior who has not played yet this season, had the shutout in goal for Yale with Tyler McCamey going the distance between the posts for Princeton. Princeton won the last meeting in Princeton 4-0 in 2021. Jen Estes, Lexi Hiltunen and Ella Midura had goals in that game, among current Tigers. Princeton leads the all-time series 27-14-3.

On Yale: The Bulldogs are 5-3-3 overall and 0-2-1 in the Ivy and are looking for their first win since Sept. 25 at Fordham. Ellie Rappole leads Yale's 11 goal scorers on the season with five goals, and Marisa Shorrock has played most of the minutes in goal with a 1.35 GAA.

Up next: The Tigers will end midterm week by heading to Harvard next Saturday for a 4 p.m. start.

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