No. 15 Princeton Heads To No. 19 Delaware

Friday, September 8

Newark, Del.

5:00 PM

Princeton University

Delaware

Photo by: Sideline Photos, LLC

September 07, 2023 | Field Hockey

No. 15 PRINCETON (0-2) at No. 19 DELAWARE (3-1)

Friday, Sept. 8 • 5 p.m.
Fred P. Rullo Stadium • Newark, Del.

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The Princeton field hockey team opened its season with a pair of 2-1 losses to teams ranked No. 5 (Louisville) and No. 2 (North Carolina) in this week's NFHCA poll. Things don't figure to get much easier in Week 2.

The Tigers have two games, in which they will first have to contend with the nation's leading scorer, to be followed by the goalie who leads the nation in save percentage. Both of those teams also happened to be ranked, which is no coincidence.

The weekend begins at Delaware Friday at 5, followed by the home opener against Rutgers Sunday at noon.

Princeton at Delaware
Five storylines

We're honored
Princeton's Robyn Thompson was named the Ivy League's first Defensive Player of the Week for 2023 after her 14 saves in the two games a week ago. After allowing two goals before making her first save in the opener against Louisville, Thompson came back with four saves and no more goals allowed in that game and then made a career-high 10 saves in the overtime loss to North Carolina.

Of the four goals she's allowed so far, one came on a penalty stroke, two came on penalty corners and one has come during the run of play.

On the other hand, Delaware's Kiki Oudshoorn was honored for making opposing goalies miserable. Oudshoorn was the NFHCA Offensive Player of the Week, as well as the CAA Player of the Week for the second straight week, after she had three goals against both Villanova and Columbia.

Oudshoorn, who leads Division I in goals per game with 2.25, scored Delaware's only goal in last year's 3-1 Princeton win in Princeton.

Series histories
The Princeton-Delaware history has been a pretty competitive one. This year's game will be the 36^th meeting between the two, and Princeton leads 17-15-3.

Since 2001, only three schools not from the ACC or Big Ten have won the NCAA tournament, and Princeton (2012) and Delaware (2016) are two of them. The other, by the way, was UConn in 2017, when its goalie was Princeton assistant coach Sarah Mansfield.

As for Princeton's opponent Sunday, the Tigers lead the all-time series with Rutgers 23-6-1. Of the six Rutgers wins, three had come consecutively before the Tigers won 4-1 in Piscataway last year.

The Scarlet
Rutgers takes on Villanova, whom Delaware defeated 8-0 last weekend, at the same time as the Tigers-Blue Hens game Friday. Rutgers is undefeated on the season at 4-0 prior to the Villanova game, and the Scarlet Knights goalie Sophia Howard enters this weekend as the leader in save percentage (.895, two goals against with 17 saves).

The Princeton-Rutgers game will be the sixth for Rutgers and fourth for Princeton, but it will be the first in the state of New Jersey for either. Rutgers played its first three games in California, with wins over UC-Davis, Stanford and Cal, and then won 2-1 at UConn last Friday before traveling to Villanova.

Princeton opened its season with two games at Penn and now plays at Delaware before coming home for the Scarlet Knights.

On the corner
Princeton ranked second in Division I a year ago with 8.72 corners per game. Princeton had 157 corners for its 18 games, compared to 70 for its opponents.

Through its two games this year, Princeton ranks 74^th of 76 Division I teams, with 1.5 penalty corners per game. Princeton has three in its two games, compared to 16 from its opponents.

Minutewomen
Princeton has two players who have played every minute through two games — goalie Robyn Thompson and center back Ottilie Sykes. In addition, Hope Delaney, like Sykes a freshman, played the entire game against North Carolina, including the overtime.

In fact, Princeton had three freshmen start the OT, with Sykes, Delaney and Ella Cashman.

Every healthy Princeton field player played in the UNC game.