ITHACA, N.Y. – The long wait for the beginning of the Ivy League season ends Friday night for the women's soccer team when it plays host to Columbia in a 7 p.m. game at Berman Field.
 
GAME INFORMATION
GAME #9: Columbia at Cornell
DATE: Friday, Sept. 27, 2013
TIME: 7 p.m.
SITE: Berman Field – Ithaca, N.Y. (grass surface)
2013 RECORDS: Columbia 4-2-1, 0-0 Ivy; Cornell 5-2-1, 0-0 Ivy
VIDEO: None
AUDIO: www.ustream.tv/channel/brsn-live
LIVE STATS: www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wsoc

ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is off to its best start since 2005, thanks to four wins over its last five games – including a 4-0 dousing of New Jersey Institute of Technology on Sunday. The Big Red's five wins this season has already surpassed its win total from the last two seasons combined. … Senior midfielder Rachel Nichols scored twice against NJIT, with sophomore forward Caroline Growney and freshman midfielder Elizabeth Crowell providing the other tallies. … Growney leads the team with four goals and, with one assist, is tied for the team scoring lead of nine points with Crowell, who has three goals and three assists. Nichols has three goals and one assist for seven points, and freshman forward Dempsey Banks has one goal and five assists for seven points. … Freshman Kelsey Tierney has started the last four games in goal, sporting a 3-1 record with a 0.42 goals-against average and .905 save percentage. Her save percentage ranks 11th in the country, and her goals-against average ranks 20th. … Banks is also among the nation's elite in a statistical category. Her five assists rank 28th in the country, and there are just three freshmen among the 327 Division I programs that have more assists than Banks – Villanova's Katie Martin (seven), Wisconsin's Rose Lavelle (six) and Mississippi State's Annebel ten Broeke.
 
ABOUT COLUMBIA
The Lions recorded a pair of shutout victories last weekend, defeating Albany, 3-0, on Friday before topping Fairleigh Dickinson, 2-0, on Sunday. Senior defender Chelsea Ryan scored all three goals against the Great Danes – the first on a penalty kick, and the latter two on headers off corner kicks. Senior midfielder Natalie Melo and sophomore midfielder Elly McGuffog scored the goals against FDU. … Senior midfielder Beverly Leon leads the team in scoring with two goals and three assists for seven points, following by six points from Ryan's three goals, Melo's two goals and two assists, and McGuffog's two goals and two assists. … Junior Grace Redmon is the team's incumbent starting goalkeeper, sporting a 2-1-1 record with a 1.38 goals-against average and .818 save percentage. She earned her first shutout of the season with three saves against Albany.
 
THE SERIES WITH COLUMBIA
The Lions hold a seven-game winning streak against the Big Red, including a 1-0 victory last season at Columbia Soccer Stadium in New York. The last time Cornell defeated Columbia was on Sept. 23, 2005, when sophomore Molly Easterlin's 25-yard strike proved to be all the offense in a 1-0 victory that pushed the Big Red's record to 6-0. That was also the last time Cornell won its Ivy League opener.
 
HEAD COACH PATRICK FARMER
Now in his 21st season as a head coach in the NCAA, Patrick Farmer is in his second season as the Cornell women's soccer program's fifth head coach. Farmer comes to the Big Red via the University of Wisconsin, where he served as an assistant coach with the Badgers' women's soccer team for three years. Prior to his stint at Wisconsin, Farmer amassed a 261-97-40 record at Ithaca College, Penn State, Tennessee Tech and Syracuse. He also served as a head coach at the professional level for two seasons, heading the New York Power of the Women's United Soccer Association. Megan Ramey returns to Cornell for her third season as an assistant coach, and Dwight Hornibrook is in his second season as an assistant coach after serving as the head coach of SUNY Cortland men's soccer for eight years. Brett Sarsfield has also joined the staff as a volunteer assistant coach.
 
AND THE WINNER IS …
Freshman goalkeeper Kelsey Tierney was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week on Monday after stopping 11 of 12 shots on target last week, while also notching her first collegiate shutout in a 2-0 victory over Binghamton on Sept. 18. It was the second consecutive week that the Big Red captured the league honor, with freshman Elizabeth Crowell being named both the Ivy League Player of the Week and the Rookie of the Week on Sept. 16 after a dominating performance of two goals and three assists in games against Marist and Albany. Crowell became the first Big Red player with three assists in a game since Amy Snow on Sept. 15, 1991. She was also the program's first Ivy League Player of the Week since Maneesha Chitanvis on Oct. 8, 2012, and the first Rookie of the Week since senior Mary Keroack on Sept. 6, 2010. It's also the first time that Cornell has won two Rookie of the Week honors in the same season since 2007.
 
SPOT DUTY
Senior midfielder Rachel Nichols' overtime goal Sept. 13 against Marist was the Big Red's first converted penalty kick since Sept. 5, 2010, when Caedran Harvey scored her first collegiate goal from the spot in a 7-0 win over Delaware State. Cornell had not been awarded a penalty kick since Sept. 14, 2011 in a game against Binghamton. The trend continued on Sunday against NJIT, when sophomore forward Caroline Growney drew a foul in the box and also scored on her first collegiate penalty kick.
 
YOUTH IS SERVED
Of Cornell's 41 points this season, 31 have been produced by freshmen or sophomores. Senior midfielder Rachel Nichols has seven of the 10 points via upperclassmen, plus junior forward Kerry Schubert has one goal and senior forward Rachel Schlobohm has one assist.
 
QUICK STARTERS
Cornell has had great success in the 31 season openers in the program's history, picking up a 17-10-4 mark in the first game of the season. That trend was reignited this season, when a 1-0 victory over Sacred Heart gave the Big Red its first win in a season debut since defeating Oakland (Mich.) in 2008.
 
BLANK YOU VERY MUCH
Senior goalkeeper Tori Christ recorded the first shutout of her collegiate career on Sept. 6 at Sacred Heart. She needed to make just two saves to record the shutout in her 16th collegiate start. Tending goal runs in the family for Christ, whose father, Philip, played goalie for the Northeastern hockey team in his collegiate days and currently serves as a practice goalie for the NHL's Buffalo Sabres. Freshman Kelsey Tierney then posted her first shutout on Sept. 18 vs. Binghamton. The duo has also combined on two shutouts, giving the team four clean sheets through just eight games.
 
ALOHA!
Freshman forward Dempsey Banks needed less than five minutes to record the first point of her collegiate career, notching the primary assist on Kerry Schubert's goal Sept. 6 at Sacred Heart. Banks joins the Big Red from Honolulu, Hawaii, coming from the same strong Punahou School and Leahi SC programs that produced Jayann Gabrio '13, a key central defender for the Big Red over her collegiate career.
 
GOOD THINGS COME IN THREES
The Big Red has tri-captains for the fifth time in seven years with seniors Tori Christ and Rachel Nichols, and junior Claire MacManus wearing the armbands. Christ is the Big Red's first goalkeeper to serve as a two-time captain since Sherrie Chocola in 1985 and 1986.
 
SHE'S HONORED
Junior midfielder Claire MacManus was recognized for being one of the top defensive midfielders in the Ivy League last season, when she was tabbed as an All-Ivy Second Team selection. One of the team's best aerial threats, MacManus scored her only goal of last season against Sacred Heart. Off a corner kick on Sept. 14, MacManus redirected the service 10 yards from goal and past the Pioneers' keeper for the second goal of her collegiate career. MacManus is also a midfielder on the women's lacrosse team.
 
BREAKDOWN
The Big Red is carrying a roster of 25 players this season, which is the smallest since it carried 25 in 2009. While there are six seniors on this year's team, the most-represented class is the freshmen. Patrick Farmer's first recruiting class included eight freshmen, plus the addition of one transfer and two walk-ons.

NATIONAL APPEAL
The Big Red has 12 different states and China represented on the team roster, with its home state of New York claiming seven players. Cornell has three players that hail from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, two each from California and Virginia, and single representatives from Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and Oregon. Dana Daniels comes from China, but joins the Big Red via The Bullis School in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

UP NEXT
Cornell hits the road next weekend for a two-game swing through the Mid-Atlantic region. The Big Red will visit Penn at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, then play its non-league finale 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 6 at Delaware State.