ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's soccer team returns home for its last two games of the season, starting with a clash against defending Ivy League champion Princeton at 2 p.m. Saturday. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
 

GAME INFORMATION

Princeton at Cornell
DATE: Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018
TIME: 2 p.m.
SITE: Berman Field – Ithaca, N.Y. (natural surface)
RECORDS: Cornell 1-11-1 (0-5 Ivy League); Princeton 9-3-2 (3-1-1)
VIDEO: ESPN+ 
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com
 

LAST TIME OUT

• Evanthia Spyredes scored her first collegiate goal to give the Big Red a lead on the road, but Brown rattled off three unanswered goals for a 3-1 victory on Sunday.
• The goal was set up by a corner kick Carolyn Ruoff, whose service to around eight yards off the near post was headed in by Spyredes. It was Cornell's first goal since Sept. 22, a span of 447 minutes and 24 seconds.
• Brown equalized later in the first half when a free kick caromed in off a defender, then the Bears stormed ahead for good on a pair of penalty-kick strikes in the second half.
• The Big Red's other goal in Ivy play this year also came off a corner kick. Kaili Gregory finished off service from Jessica Ritchie in the 24th minute of the league opener against Columbia, and the Big Red clung to the lead until the 87th minute despite being outshot in the game by a 38-1 margin. The Lions eventually won, 2-1, in 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.
• Evanthia Spyredes and Kennedy Yearby rank second in team scoring with three points on a goal and an assist. Yearby's points all came 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.
• Meghan Kennedy is Cornell's primary goalkeeper with a 1-8-1 record, 1.82 goals against average and .798 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 185-135-34.
• 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 75 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 1.46 career goals against average that ranks ninth on the program's all-time list and a .820 career save percentage that ranks 10th.
• As of Wednesday, Kennedy ranked sixth in the country with an average of 7.5 saves per game.
• Cornell has the sixth-fewest fouls per game in country with an average of 5.85.
• 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 back with the Big Red after her most recent tour of duty with the Jamaica women's national soccer team, nicknamed the 'Reggae Girlz', helping the squad to a third-place finish at the 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship and a subsequent berth in the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup.
• Matthews started against the United States in the Oct. 14 semifinal in Dallas, playing the full 90 minutes. She also twice came on as a reserve in the 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 PRINCETON

• The Tigers improved to 9-3-2 overall and 3-1-1 in Ivy League play after a pair of Courtney O'Brien goals early in the second half propelled them to a 2-0 victory over Harvard last Saturday.  
• The result helped Princeton stay three points behind Penn for the Ivy League lead, with the regional rivals set to square off on Saturday, Nov. 3.
• On the strength of three unanswered goals on Oct. 6, Brown put a dent in Princeton's hopes of defending the Ivy League title with a shocking 3-2 victory.
• As usual, Princeton brandishes one of the league's top forwards in Mimi Asom. She leads the league in scoring with 21 points on 10 goals and an assist. Her average of 0.71 goals per game rankes 25th in the country. Gabi Juarez has nine points on four goals and an assist.
• Natalie Grossi is Princeton's primary goalkeeper with a 7-2-2 record, 0.57 goals against average and .863 save percentage. Her eight shutouts are tied for the league lead.
• Sean Driscoll is in his fourth season as the head coach.
 

THE SERIES WITH PRINCETON

• The Tigers own a 25-7-4 advantage in the all-time series, having won last year's meeting, 2-0, in New Jersey. Meghan Kennedy made 11 saves in the game against a Princeton team that was ranked 15th in the country at the time.
• Princeton is currently riding a 22-game winning streak in the series, including overtime victories in 2009 and 2010. Cornell played Princeton in its first game on the varsity level in 1982.
• The Big Red's last victory against the Tigers came Sept. 23, 1995, when Cornell earned a triumph en route to an undefeated season in Ivy League play.
 

UP NEXT

• Cornell returns to Berman Field one last time for Senior Day at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3 against Dartmouth.