ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's soccer team kicks off the home stretch of its season with four consecutive Ivy League matches, starting with a 2 p.m. Saturday contest at Yale.
 
GAME INFORMATION
Cornell at Yale
DATE: Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017
TIME: 2 p.m.
SITE: Reese Stadium – New Haven, Conn. (artificial surface)
RECORDS*: Cornell 2-6-2, 0-2-1 Ivy League; Yale 8-3-1, 2-1 Ivy League
VIDEO: Ivy League Network
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com
UPDATES: @CUBigRedGameday

ABOUT THE BIG RED
• Cornell will look to regain its footing after a pair of home losses last weekend. Senior forward Paige DeLoach scored her second goal of the season last Saturday against Harvard, but the Crimson struck for a pair of tallies on either side of halftime to pull away for a 3-1 victory.
• In its last time out, the Big Red challenged Patriot League contender Colgate from start to finish before the Raiders left Berman Field with a 1-0 victory. Cornell has scored five goals in 10 games to date.
• The Big Red scratched out scoreless draws in each of its last two road games — Sept. 24 at Fairleigh Dickinson and Sept. 29 at Penn. Junior goalkeeper Meghan Kennedy tied a career high with 10 saves against the Quakers for her second clean sheet of the season and the fifth of her career.
• After earning All-Ivy League honorable mention last year, Kennedy enters the weekend leading the circuit in saves per game (6.00) by a wide margin. That number also has her ranked 29th in the country, as of Wednesday.
• In addition to DeLoach's tallies, sophomore forward Kennedy Yearby, sophomore defender Kaili Gregory and freshman midfielder Shelby Wray have scored Cornell's goals this season.
 
HEAD COACH DWIGHT HORNIBROOK
• After serving as an assistant coach for five seasons, Dwight Hornibrook was named the head coach in February 2017. While he's in his first season at the helm of the Big Red, he has 17 years of head coaching experience with the men's soccer programs at Houghton and SUNY Cortland. After joining the Cornell women's soccer team, Hornibrook had helped the Big Red win 30 games over the last five years — the program's highest total in such a span since 2002-06. Hornibrook's overall record as a head coach is 184-122-31.
• After a three-year professional career, two-time Cornell captain goalkeeper Tori Christ '14 joins the Big Red as an assistant coach. Megan Giles is the team's other assistant coach after serving as the volunteer assistant coach with the Big Red last year. Dana Daniels '17 now fills the role of volunteer assistant coach after completing a four-year career with Cornell as both a goalkeeper and field player.
 
MAYER ON THE MARK
• Sophomore Chrissy Mayer made 13 saves to earn a clean sheet in her first collegiate start on Sept. 24 at Fairleigh Dickinson. Playing in her hometown state of New Jersey, Mayer's effort was the highest save total for a Cornell goalkeeper since Oct. 26, 2008, when Kelly Murphy '12 had 13 stops in a 2-0 blanking of host Brown. Mayer made 23 saves in five career appearances before yielding her first goal on Monday against Colgate.
 
CASE IN POINTS
• Of Cornell's 36 points last season, 32 were notched by players who return to the squad this year. Also, eight of the team's 16 goals from its memorable 2015 season were scored by players on its current squad — four from senior Paige DeLoach, two from junior Jessica Ritchie and one each from seniors Carolyn Ruoff and Tess Pullano.
 
A CALL TO ARMBANDS
• Seniors Kaylee Fitzgerald and Whitney Farber are serving as the Big Red's co-captains this season. Both players are frequently in the mix for the Big Red, with Fitzgerald primarily on the back line and Farber moving into a midfield role this year. Cornell carries eight seniors on its roster of 28 this season.

NATIONAL APPEAL
• The Big Red has 14 different states, the District of Columbia and the province of Alberta represented on the team roster. The most represented state on the Big Red is California, which is called home by six players. Five hail from New York, four from New Jersey, two each from Illinois, Maryland and Ohio, and one each from Nevada, Oregon, Virginia, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia and Alberta. Head coach Dwight Hornibrook also hails from Canada, native to the New Brunswick capital of Fredericton.
 
ABOUT YALE
• The Bulldogs remain three points back in the Ivy League race with a 2-1 conference mark. Yale dropped its Ivy opener to nationally ranked Princeton, 2-0, on Sept. 23 before rebounding with a convincing 3-0 win Sept. 30 against defending champion Harvard and a 2-1 overtime victory last Saturday against Dartmouth.
• Sophomore forward Ariel Chavarin scored the OT winner against the Big Green for her first goal of the season. She provided the Bulldogs' lone against Cornell last year on a penalty kick.
• Junior forward Michelle Alozie leads the team in scoring with 19 points on seven goals and five assists. She ranks second in the Ivy League in points per game (1.58).
• Sophomore midfielder Noelle Higginson is second in team scoring with eight points on four goals — including one on a penalty kick.
• Sophomore Alyssa Fagel has started eight of Yale's 12 games in goal, posting a 5-2-1 record, 1.37 goals against average and .766 save percentage with two shutouts.
• Rudy Meredith is in his 23rd season as the head coach at Yale.
 
THE SERIES WITH YALE
• The all-time series is extremely close despite a dearth of draws, with Cornell cutting Yale's advantage to 18-17 after one-goal victories in each of the last two meetings.
• The Bulldogs outshot the Big Red, 24-6, and had all nine corner kicks of last year's game at Berman Field, but Cornell emerged with a 2-1 victory. Junior midfielder Jessica Ritchie scored in the 23rd minute, sophomore midfielder Juliana Comer's first collegiate goal in the 77th minute, and 10 saves from junior goalkeeper Meghan Kennedy paced Cornell to the win.
• Cornell defeated Yale, 1-0, in its last game at Reese Stadium in 2015. Elizabeth Crowell '17 scored on a rebound after her penalty kick was saved in the 27th minute. Yale won by identical 1-0 scores in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

UP NEXT
• Cornell returns to Ithaca for its Senior Day game against Brown on at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21. The Big Red then wraps up its season with road games Oct. 28 at Princeton and Nov. 4 at Dartmouth.