GAME INFORMATION
GAME #14: Cornell vs. Princeton
DATE: Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010
TIME: 4:00 p.m.
SITE: Ithaca, N.Y. - Berman Field
2010 RECORDS: Cornell - 6-6-1 (1-3-1 Ivy League); Princeton - 8-6-0 (3-2-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Princeton leads, 16-7-4
LAST MEETING: Princeton won, 1-0, in overtime, on Oct. 31, 2009, in Princeton, N.J.
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wsoc

The Cornell women's soccer team opens up its final homestand of the season on Saturday, taking on Princeton in a 4 p.m. contest at Berman Field. The Big Red will be trying to climb above the .500 mark for the year and guarantee its first season at or above .500 since 2005.

HEAD COACH DANIELLE LAROCHE
Now in her fourth season directing the Big Red women's soccer program, Danielle LaRoche has assembled a team that is ready to compete among the Ivy League's elite programs. The fourth coach in Cornell history, she holds a career coaching mark of 13-43-3. She picked up her first collegiate head coaching victory on Sept. 7, 2007, when Cornell defeated Hartford, 1-0, in double overtime, and notched career victory number 10 with a 3-1 win at Binghamton on Sept. 22, 2010. LaRoche's career also includes stops as an assistant coach at George Mason, Binghamton and Howard. A 1995 graduate of Maryland, LaRoche played two seasons for the Terrapins under April Heinrichs, who would later go on to serve as the head coach of the U.S. Women's National Team. LaRoche is assisted by Elke Reisdorph, in her second season, and Keith Comfort, in his first year with the Big Red.

ABOUT THE BIG RED
The Big Red closed out the road portion of the schedule on Sunday with a scoreless tie at Brown, with netminder Megan Bartlett making six saves in earning her third shutout of the season. The draw kept Cornell head coach Danielle LaRoche unbeaten at Brown's Stevenson Field, posting a 1-0-1 all-time record in Providence. Cornell's offense is led this season by Maneesha Chitanvis, who has 10 points on four goals and two assists. Brook Chang shares the team lead in goals with Chitanvis, tallying nine points on the year on four goals and one assist. Xandra Hompe and Rachel Nichols are tied for the team lead with four assists each. In goal, Bartlett has played a majority of time, recording a 1.17 goals-against average and a .830 save percentage. Kelly Murphy has also seen extensive time this season, posting a 0.94 goals-against average and a .800 save percentage with two shutouts.

ABOUT PRINCETON
Princeton enters this weekend's action on a two-game losing skid, dropping contests to Columbia and Harvard over the last two weekends, and being shut out both times. Princeton's offense features a two-pronged attack, as Caitlin Blosser and Jen Hoy have accounted for the majority of the Tigers' scoring. Blosser has 19 points on six goals and seven assists, while Hoy has 17 points on a team-best seven goals -- no other Princeton player has more than five points on the year. In goal, Kristin Watson has played the majority of time, posting a 1.10 goals-against average and a .803 save percentage with five shutouts.

THE SERIES WITH PRINCETON
The Tigers lead the all-time series against the Big Red, 16-7-4, and have claimed victory in each of the last 13 meetings. Last season, the two teams played nearly two full overtime periods before Princeton scored a crushing goal with 24 seconds left in the second overtime period to claim a 1-0 win. The Big Red played for nearly 90 minutes with just 10 men after a harsh red card just 27 minutes into the match left Cornell scrambling. Cornell's last win over Princeton came on Sept. 23, 1995, in Princeton, N.J., a 1-0 Big Red win. Since then, Cornell has lost 13 straight and has been shut out 11 times.

FIRING BLANKS
Cornell's scoreless tie with Brown on Sunday marked the first time since 2005 that the Big Red posted a shutout in back-to-back games. That season, the Big Red blanked Lafayette, 4-0, and Columbia, 1-0, five days apart. Cornell also posted back-to-back shutouts on Sept. 3 and 4 at St. Bonaventure and Robert Morris that season, making up the four shutouts the team registered on the year. This season, Cornell has already held its opponent scoreless six times.

ON THE PLUS SIDE
A win on Saturday against Princeton would ensure the Big Red no worse than a .500 overall record for the season, something that hasn't been accomplished since 2005 when Cornell went 7-7-1. With two games remaining on the schedule this year, the Big Red is 6-6-1.

TWO FOR THE MONEY
A win over Princeton this weekend would give the Big Red two league wins, a feat accomplished just once since 2000. Cornell went 2-5 in Ivy League play in 2002, but has won either one or zero games in league play in each season since the turn of the millenium.

SIX-SHOOTER
Cornell's six wins this season are the most for the Big Red since Cornell posted a 7-7-1 mark in 2005. In fact, the Big Red has posted just 10 wins in the four previous seasons combined.

MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Cornell's defensive numbers over the last four years are a strong indicator of the progress made by the program under head coach Danielle LaRoche. The Big Red's goals-against average has gone down substantially over that period, from a mark of 2.32 in 2008 to its current level of 1.06 this season. Similarly, the Big Red's team save percentage was as low as .651 in 2007, but is just over the 80-percent level (.825) this season.

DOUBLE YOUR FUN
With three games remaining in the 2010 season, Cornell has already recorded more than twice as many goals as were scored during the 2009 campaign. In fact, the Big Red equaled the 2009 season total after just two games in 2010, scoring eight goals in the season opening weekend against Delaware and Delaware State. Since then, Cornell has added another 11 goals to the ledger, with the 19 goals notched so far this season the highest total since the Big Red struck for 23 goals in 2005.

STAY POSITIVE
Cornell's game against Colgate on Oct. 3 concluded the non-conference portion of the schedule for the Big Red, and Cornell wrapped up games against Ivy League foes with a 5-3 mark. That marks just the eighth time since Ivy League play began in 1990 that the Big Red had a better-than-.500 record outside of the league, and the first time since going 6-1 outside of league play in 2005.

LENDING A HELPING HAND
Coming hand-in-hand with the increased goal production, the Big Red offense has tallied 16 assists through the first 13 games of the 2010 season. That number is the highest mark during the coaching tenure of head coach Danielle LaRoche and is the most since 2003, when Cornell picked up 23 assists.

SPREADING THE WEALTH
Through 12 games this season, a total of 10 different players have scored at least one goal for the Big Red. Last year, the number of different goalscorers was five, with the 10 so far this season the most since the Big Red had 10 different goalscorers in the 1999 season. Cornell also had 10 different players score goals in 1994, 1987 and 1984, with the record for most different scorers being 11, set in 1991.

ON THE SCOREBOARD
Of the 10 different players who have found the back of the net so far this season, seven of those players (Rachel Nichols, Xandra Hompe, Megan Crowell, Mary Keroack, Caedran Harvey, Annmarie Irwin, Kristina Jackson) have recorded their first career goals.

LONG TIME COMING
Cornell's seven-goal outburst on Sept. 5 against Delaware State marked the first time the Big Red offense erupted for that total since defeating Army, 7-2, on Oct. 22, 1996, a span of nearly 14 years. The seven-goal margin of victory was the largest for Cornell since downing Bucknell, 7-0, on Oct. 18, 1992, a span of nearly 18 years. Additionally, the seven goals tie the Cornell record for most goals scored in a game, a mark previously set four times.

AIR FORCE
Junior Sidra Bonner has four career goals to her credit, and each of the four have come the exact same way: a header off a corner kick. Bonner led the team in scoring last season with six points on three goals, and added another with a header off Xandra Hompe's corner kick in the first half against Delaware State on Sept. 5.

IVY HONORS
Freshman Mary Keroack was named the Ivy League's Rookie of the Week after her two-goal performance against Delaware State on Sept. 5.

YOUTH IS SERVED
Of the 28 players on the 2010 roster for the Big Red, just two of them - Katie Hayes and Lena Russomagno - are seniors, giving the Big Red an outstanding foundation for the future. In fact, of the nine players who have recorded at least one point through the first two weekends of play, only Sidra Bonner and Brook Chang are juniors - all of the others are either freshmen or sophomores.

FOR STARTERS
Cornell has had great success in the 28 season openers in the program's history, picking up a 16-8-4 mark in the first game of the season despite the loss to Delaware to open the 2010 campaign. The Big Red is now 1-2-1 in season openers under Danielle LaRoche.

NATIONAL APPEAL
When Danielle LaRoche explains the recruiting efforts to bring together the 2010 team as searching far and wide, she's not kidding. The Big Red has 15 different states represented on the team roster, with California and Virginia having five apiece. New Jersey has three players wearing the Carnelian Red, while Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts each have a pair of players on the Cornell roster. States with a single representative include Hawaii, Maryland, Ohio, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Delaware, Connecticut and New York.

UP NEXT
Cornell closes out the season with a home game against Dartmouth on Sat., Nov. 5, at Berman Field.