Tordin Strikes Again! Women's Soccer Team Drops #10 Georgetown, 3-2

Thursday, September 14

Princeton, N.J.

7:00 PM

Princeton University

4-1-1, 0-0-0

Georgetown

4-1-3, 0-0-0

Georgetown

Princeton

Pietra Tordin, center, had the game-winning goal Thursday night.

Photo by: Sideline Photos, LLC

Tordin Strikes Again! Women's Soccer Team Drops #10 Georgetown, 3-2

September 14, 2023 | Women's Soccer

Box Score

What a night at Roberts Stadium. What a wild, weird, wonderful night.

A 77th-minute goal from Pietra Tordin ended up being the difference as the Princeton women's soccer team posted a 3-2 win over No. 10-ranked Georgetown, a team Princeton has faced four times in the last five competitive seasons. Each time, Georgetown was ranked in the top 15, and the Hoyas had two overtime wins along with a tie in those first three meetings.

Princeton led 2-0 at the half, and while the Tigers were outshooting the Hoyas 6-3 overall and were even in shots on goal 2-2, it was a couple of crossing passes that gave Princeton the two-goal lead. In the 18th minute, Jen Estes sent a pass along the end line looking for Heather MacNab's foot, but the pass was just ahead of MacNab's stride. The Georgetown defender on MacNab stuck out a leg, and the ball ended up squibbing through the extremities of Hoyas keeper Cara Martin as Martin had to make the sudden save. Just six minutes later, Madison Curry sent her own crossing pass along the end line looking for a charging Estes or Marissa Hart, and another Georgetown defender stuck out a leg to intercept the cross mid-air and ended up sending it past Martin instead.

But, Georgetown was even before 10 minutes were gone in the second half. The Hoyas' Kaya Hanson picked up a Princeton clearing attempt in the 50th minute and threaded it home from the edge of the 18, and less than four minutes later, Natalie Means took a pass ahead from Tatum Lenain and sent a shot across the goal, tucking the equalizer under the crossbar to pull Georgetown even at 2-2.

It stayed even at 2-2 until the 77th minute, when Lily Bryant found Drew Coomans on the right side of the field, and after a Georgetown defender looked to disrupt Coomans and knock the ball off her foot, Coomans recovered to connect with Tordin for a header and a 3-2 Princeton lead. The goal was Tordin's team-best eighth of the season.

Along with the two own goals, the unusualness of the night saw two people with Princeton degrees competing against a team full of those on their way toward that achievement. Emma Davis '22 and Grace Sherman '23, both of whom lost the 2020 season due to the pandemic, are using that year as graduate students at Georgetown. Tiger senior Morgan Wiese was competing against the team on which her sister, Maya, is a rookie and the school where her father, Brian, coaches the Georgetown men's team, which was in the neighborhood ahead of its Big East opener at Seton Hall on Friday night. Thanks to an odd situation in the closing minutes, a red card on Wiese led to Princeton playing with 10 players for the final 30-plus seconds. Wiese went to the ground with a clock-stopping injury with less than three minutes to go, and because of that, had to leave the game, but was soon well enough to re-enter. As Princeton was set to take a corner kick, Wiese thought she had the all-clear to re-enter the game, but instead received a yellow card upon trying to return, and just 100 seconds later, Wiese received a yellow on a foul, putting Princeton at 10 for the closing moments.

Princeton held on, and for the third time in Sean Driscoll's eight competitive seasons as head coach, the Tigers have a top-10 win. Driscoll's teams have now faced 10 top-10 opponents in his eight competitive seasons with the program, and Thursday night's win added to a 4-3 win at No. 9 Rutgers in 2021 and a 2-1 overtime win over No. 2 North Carolina in the round of 16 of the 2017 NCAA tournament.

Now 4-1-1, the Tigers will play their final game before the Ivy League season begins next weekend, heading to Quinnipiac for a noon kick on Sunday.