ITHACA, N.Y. — In its penultimate game before the start of Ivy League season, the women's soccer team will look to stem the tide of a three-game losing streak at 7 p.m. Thursday when it hosts Seton Hall under the lights at Berman Field.
GAME INFORMATION
Seton Hall at Cornell
DATE: Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016
TIME: 7 p.m.
SITE: Berman Field – Ithaca, N.Y. (natural surface)
RECORDS: Cornell 2-3, Seton Hall 3-3
VIDEO:
Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS:
CornellBigRed.com
LIVE UPDATES:
@CUBigRedGameday
ABOUT THE BIG RED
In the midst of the program's most challenging stretch of non-league games in five years under head coach
Patrick Farmer, Cornell has lost its last three games. After clawing back to force overtime against Syracuse on junior
Tess Pullano's second-half goal on Sept. 4, the Orange would pull ahead for good on a golden goal in the first overtime for a 2-1 victory. The Big Red then stood toe-to-toe for most of last Friday's game against nationally ranked Rutgers before the host Scarlet Knights won 2-0 on a pair of late goals. Cornell then couldn't rebound from a sluggish start in Sunday's game against San Diego State, with a 45th-minute goal on a penalty kick proving to be all that was needed for a 1-0 Aztecs victory. … The Big Red started the year with 1-0 victories on the road against Siena (Aug. 28) and Loyola (Sept. 2). Both games featured goals in the fifth minute from junior forward
Paige DeLoach. At the time, the Big Red had gone 13 straight non-league games without a loss (10-0-3) dating back to Oct. 13, 2014. … DeLoach leads the team in scoring with four points on her two goals, then Pullano has three points on her goal against Syracuse and an assist on DeLoach's goal at Loyola. … Sophomore goalkeeper
Meghan Kennedy has started three of the last four games for Cornell and made 20 saves over that stretch. She has a 1-2 record with a 1.00 goals against average, .870 and one shutout.
BIG RED REWIND
Cornell is coming off a memorable season in which it accomplished a host of heights the program has not recently seen. The Big Red was the last Division I women's team in the country to concede a goal, recording 10 consecutive shutouts and a program-record shutout streak of 1,059 minutes, 19 seconds dating back to November 2014. The penultimate team to concede its first goal last season is the Big Red's opponent Friday — Rutgers. Cornell's undefeated mark through 11 games was also a first in program history, and the team's final record of 9-4-4 marked its best finish since 1995. Both the starting goalkeeper, senior
Kelsey Tierney, and both primary central defenders, senior
Kailey Joyce and sophomore
Zoe McCormick, return to the Big Red this year. ... Senior midfielder
Elizabeth Crowell led the team in scoring for a second straight year with nine points. The All-Ivy League first team selection had four goals and one assist, with her goal total tying for the team lead with DeLoach. Sophomore midfielder
Jessica Ritchie had two goals and an assist for five points last year, while sophomore midfielder
Carolyn Ruoff is the only returning player with two assists last year.
HEAD COACH PATRICK FARMER
Now in his 24th season as a head coach in the NCAA,
Patrick Farmer is entering his fifth season as the Cornell women's soccer program's head coach. Farmer came 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 has 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.
Dwight Hornibrook is in his fifth season as an assistant coach after serving as the head coach of SUNY Cortland men's soccer for eight years, and the Big Red has added two new coaches for this year. Longtime Le Moyne head coach
Tracey Leipold will join the Big Red staff as an assistant coach, and Megan Giles is the new volunteer assistant coach after winning two All-Southland Conference honors during her four-year career at Oral Roberts.
TIERNEY'S TALE
Senior
Kelsey Tierney played every minute of the historic season in goal for the Big Red last year, helping the team tie a program single-season record with 12 shutouts and earning All-Ivy League first team honors. Tierney led the nation in goals against average for much of the season and finished the year ranked seventh (0.50), and she also ranked 13th in save percentage (.868). Her 12 shutouts ranked fourth in the nation, and she started this season on a similar note with a four-save blanking of Siena on Aug. 28. That clean sheet brought Tierney's career total of shutouts to 19, which ranks third in program history behind Melissa Gambrell (22) and Sue DeLong (20). Tierney also ranks tied for fourth in career victories (20) and sixth in career goals against average (1.09). Tierney and classmate
Elizabeth Crowell gave the Big Red its first All-Ivy first-teamers since 1995.
A CALL TO ARMBANDS
Seniors
Kelsey Tierney,
Kailey Joyce and
Elizabeth Crowell are serving as the Big Red's tri-captains this season. The group has three All-Ivy League selection between them, providing the Big Red with leadership that has logged significant minutes over their collegiate careers.
BALANCING ACT
For the first time in
Patrick Farmer's tenure as the head coach, the Big Red has a balanced roster in terms of age and production. Cornell is carrying a roster of 30 players, including seven seniors. There are also nine juniors, six sophomores and eight freshmen on the roster. Of Cornell's 108 points over the last two seasons, 63 were produced by players who are still on the team.
NATIONAL APPEAL
The Big Red has 12 different states and the District of Columbia represented on the team roster, with its home state of New York claiming nine players. Cornell has three players each that hail from California and Maryland, two each from the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and one each from Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon and Texas. The nine players from New York marks the most on a Cornell roster since it had 15 Empire State natives on the 1997 squad.
ABOUT SETON HALL
Off to a 3-3 start, the Pirates have already surpassed their win total from a 2-14-2 campaign in 2015. Half of Seton Hall's games have gone to overtime, including a 1-0 victory against Army West Point on Aug. 22 and a 2-1 triumph on Sept. 8 at Albany that marked the team's last time out. Junior Lauren Hall scored in the 77th minute to tie the game, then freshman Siobhan McGovern's header off a corner kick from senior Frankie Maier in the third minute of overtime served as the winner. Seton Hall's other win was a 2-1 decision over Quinnipiac on Aug. 29. … The Pirates were scheduled to play Sunday against Loyola, but the game was canceled due to a dearth of available players from the Greyhounds (illness). … Maier leads the team in scoring with six points on two goals and two assists. She's tied for the team lead in goals with McGovern, and Hall and freshman Marissa Aniolowski have scored the Pirates' other goals this season. … Seton Hall has used sophomore Anna MacLean exclusively as its goalkeeper this year. She is 3-3 with a 1.14 goals against average, .759 save percentage and one shutout.
THE SERIES WITH SETON HALL
This will be the Pirates' first visit to Berman Field in the programs' third all-time meeting. The first came on neutral soil at Colgate's Raider Invitational on Sept. 12, 2010, with Seton Hall securing a 2-0 victory. Cornell then traveled to South Orange, N.J. for the first time last year, using a ninth-minute goal from
Tess Pullano off a beautiful chip pass from
Carolyn Ruoff to come away with a 1-0 victory.
Kelsey Tierney made three saves for the shutout. … Cornell is 5-6-2 all-time against current members of the Big East Conference.
UP NEXT
The Big Red hits the road for its final tuneup before Ivy League play when it takes on regional rival Binghamton at noon Sunday in Vestal. Cornell then stayed on the road for its next two games, opening the league slate at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23 against Columbia (in a game scheduled to be played at Fairleigh Dickinson) before a 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25 visit to Central Connecticut State.
