ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's soccer team returns to Berman Field for three of its final four games, all within Ivy League play and starting with a visit from Yale at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
GAME INFORMATION
Yale at Cornell
DATE: Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018
TIME: 1 p.m.
SITE: Berman Field – Ithaca, N.Y. (natural surface)
RECORDS: Cornell 1-9-1 (0-3 Ivy League); Yale 5-5-1 (0-3)
VIDEO:
ESPN+
LIVE STATS:
CornellBigRed.com
LAST TIME OUT
• Cornell is coming off three straight 2-0 losses, the latest coming on Tuesday in the team's non-league finale at Colgate.
• The Big Red got off 10 shots in the game, which marked its highest shot total since unloading 18 against Le Moyne on Sept. 5.
Evanthia Spyredes had all three of the shots on target, and freshman goalkeeper
Miranda Iannone made six saves in her first collegiate start.
• Cornell sits at 0-3 in Ivy League play with 2-0 setbacks against Harvard (Oct. 6) and Penn (Sept. 29) in its most recent action.
• The Big Red opened league competition on Sept. 22, suffering a heartbreaking 2-1 golden-goal loss to Columbia in New York.
Kaili Gregory scored off corner-kick service from
Jessica Ritchie in the 24th minute, and the Big Red led until the 87th minute despite being outshot in the game by a 38-1 margin.
• Rachel Alexander finally equalized with 3:45 remaining in the second half for Columbia, the 2017 Ivy League runner-up, then she set up the winning goal 28 seconds into the second overtime period.
ABOUT THE BIG RED
•
Kaili Gregory owns the team lead in scoring with five points on two goals and an assist. Her first goal of the year came in the 100th minute of Cornell's season-opening 2-1 overtime victory on Aug. 24 at St. Bonaventure.
•
Kennedy Yearby ranks second in team scoring with three points on a goal and an assist – both in the second half of a 2-2 tie with Albany on Sept. 18 at Berman Field.
•
Shelby Wray,
Naomi Jaffe and
Aidan Julia Reineman have the Big Red's other goals this season. Reineman also leads the team with 14 shots.
•
Meghan Kennedy is Cornell's primary goalkeeper with a 1-6-1 record, 1.78 goals against average and .803 save percentage.
Chrissy Mayer (0-2, 1.00, .778) has also made a pair of starts, the last coming in a 1-0 loss Sept. 16 at Saint Joseph's.
HEAD COACH DWIGHT HORNIBROOK
• After serving as an assistant coach for five seasons,
Dwight Hornibrook was named the program's sixth head coach in advance of the 2017 season.
• Hornibrook had 17 years of head coaching experience with the men's soccer programs at Houghton and SUNY Cortland before joining the Cornell women's soccer team. He has helped the Big Red win 33 games over the last six-plus years and now has an overall record as a head coach of 185-133-34.
• Two-time Cornell captain goalkeeper
Tori Christ '14 returns for her second season as an assistant coach, and
Eva Francavilla has joined the staff as an assistant coach.
BY THE NUMBERS
•
Jessica Ritchie (three goals, five assists) is Cornell's active scoring leader with 11 points, followed closely by
Kennedy Yearby's 10 (four goals, two assists) and
Kaili Gregory's seven (three goals, one assist).
•
Meghan Kennedy leads the Ivy League with 61 saves despite playing in fewer games than the starters of each other league team. She also led the league with 82 saves in 2017. Her 1.43 career goals against average that ranks eighth on the program's all-time list and a .823 career save percentage that ranks 10th.
• As of Monday, Kennedy ranked sixth in the country with an average of 7.63 saves per game.
• Cornell has the fifth-fewest fouls per game in country with an average of 5.82.
• Kennedy made a career-high 15 saves against Columbia, including 10 in the second half. The 15 stops were tied for fifth-most in a single game for a Cornell goalkeeper in program history, and the most since 2001.
THE REGGAE GIRL
• Freshman
Jadyn Matthews is expected to return to the Big Red after competing with the Jamaica women's national soccer team, nicknamed the 'Reggae Girlz', at the 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship.
• While Matthews did not appear in a game in this tournament, she twice came on as a reserve in CONCACAF Women's Caribbean Zone final round games against Antigua and Barbuda on Aug. 25 and Cuba on Sept. 2.
• Matthews has become the second Cornell women's soccer to play for her senior national team, joining
Rachel Nichols '14 after her tenure with The Philippines.
A CALL TO ARMBANDS
• Seniors
Meghan Kennedy and
Jessica Ritchie are serving as the Big Red's co-captains this season. Both players are among the team's leading contributors this season, with both wearing the armband for the first time in their collegiate careers. Cornell carries just three seniors and has 14 underclasswomen on its roster of 23.
NATIONAL APPEAL
• The Big Red has 12 different states and the District of Columbia represented on the team roster of 23.
• The most represented state on the Big Red is California, which is called home by six players. Four hail from New Jersey, three from Florida, and one each from Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
• Though there are no Canadians among the players, head coach
Dwight Hornibrook is native to the New Brunswick capital of Fredericton.
ABOUT YALE
• The Bulldogs have fallen back to .500 after dropping their last three games, all shutout losses in Ivy League play. Most recently, Yale conceded an 87th-minute goal in a 1-0 setback to Dartmouth last Saturday.
• Yale's other Ivy League losses have come to Harvard (1-0 on Sept. 29) and Princeton (3-0 on Sept. 22). The Bulldogs haven't scored in a span of 351 minutes, 14 seconds, dating back to a 2-1 win over Robert Morris on Sept. 16.
• Noelle Higginson leads the team in scoring with 11 points on three goals and five assists. Saje Brar has two goals and four assists for eight points in a reserve role, and target forward Aerial Chavarin had three goals and an assist for seven points.
• Alyssa Fagel is the team's primary goalkeeper with a 5-4-1 record, 1.16 goals against average, .782 save percentage and two shutouts.
• Rudy Meredith is in his 24th season as the head coach.
THE SERIES WITH YALE
• It took 36 all-time meetings, but Cornell and Yale finally played to the first draw in their program histories last year in a scoreless battle in Connecticut.
Meghan Kennedy made eight saves in the shutout for Cornell.
• That draw brought the all-time series record to 18-17-1 in favor of Yale, though Cornell won the previous two meetings by one-goal margins.
• The Bulldogs outshot the Big Red, 24-6, and had all nine corner kicks in the last meeting at Berman Field in 2016, but Cornell emerged with a 2-1 victory.
Jessica Ritchie scored in the 23rd minute,
Juliana Comer's first collegiate goal in the 77th minute, and 10 saves from junior goalkeeper
Meghan Kennedy paced Cornell to the win.
UP NEXT
• Cornell hits the road for the last time when it takes on Brown at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21 in Providence, R.I.
