ITHACA, N.Y. — The No. 15-ranked Cornell men's soccer team plays its penultimate regular-season match of the 2022 season on Saturday afternoon when the Big Red travels to New Haven, Conn., to face Yale at Reese Stadium.

Game Information

SITE: Reese Stadium – New Haven, Conn. (artificial surface)
TIME: Saturday, Nov. 5 – 5 p.m.
RECORDS: Cornell (12-3-0, 4-1-0 Ivy), Yale (6-4-4, 1-3-1 Ivy)
SERIES RECORD: Yale leads, 36-23-13
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: YaleBulldogs.com

Last Time Out

• Junior Henry Hylbert and fifth-year Emeka Eneli scored for the Big Red, as Cornell defeated Dartmouth, 2-1, preventing a comeback attempt by Dartmouth last Saturday at Berman Field.
 
• Hylbert (37th minute) and Eneli (56th minute) scored the first two goals of the match before Dartmouth's Oskar Magnusson cut into the Big Red lead with his 69th-minute goal.
 
• Cornell's back line thwarted any Big Green chances, yielding just one shot attempt over the final 20-plus minutes of the match.
 
• Freshman goalkeeper Ryan Friedberg continued to improve on his single-season freshman wins record, logging his 12th victory of the season in goal. He stopped two shots in the victory.

What's at Stake

• Cornell is seeking its second four-game win streak of the season on Saturday. The Big Red had a six-game win streak, spanning from Sept. 17 — Oct. 8, before it was snapped against Colgate, 1-0, on Oct. 11.
 
• With a win Saturday, Cornell will register its 13th win of the season, becoming just the fourth team in the 113 years of competition in which men's soccer logged 13-plus wins in a season. They would join the 1995 and 2012 teams who had 15-win seasons and the 1972 squad who finished with a 13-4-0 mark.
 
• Following last weekend's win over Dartmouth, this year's team became the seventh team in program history to win 12 games in a season.

October's Not So Scary…

• Cornell concluded October with a 6-2-0 record, marking the second consecutive month with at least six wins. It is the first time in program history that a Cornell team has posted six-plus victories in consecutive months.
 
• The 6-2-0 record in October was the Big Red's best mark in the month of October (min. 5 games played) since going 4-1-0 in Oct. 2012.

Crunching Numbers

• The United Soccer Coaches released its updated rankings on Tuesday afternoon, featuring Cornell jumping 10 spots in the rankings from No. 25 to No. 15.
 
• Cornell's No. 15 ranking is the highest it has been during the Big Red's five-week span of being in the United Soccer Coaches poll. It is also the highest ranking Cornell has had since being ranked No. 11 on Nov. 13, 2012.
 
• Last Friday evening, during halftime of the Duke - Virginia Tech game on the ACC Network, the NCAA Men's Soccer Tournament committee revealed its top 16 rankings, through games completed on Oct. 27, which featured Cornell at No. 13.
 
• Should Cornell retain its top 16 ranking from the committee, the Big Red would receive a first-round bye in the NCAA Tournament and host a second-round match at Berman Field.

Points Galore!

• Senior midfielder Brandon Morales is second in the Ivy League with his 21 points (seven goals, seven assists). Morales is one of three Ivy League players with 20-plus points, joining Penn's Stas Korzeniowski (22 points) and Ben Stitz (20 points).
 
• Morales has an Ivy League-leading five multi-point games, logging a pair of multi-goal games and a trio of multi-assist games. Korzeniowski and Stitz are behind with four multi-point games.
 
• Senior Connor Drought and junior Kisa Kiingi, along with fifth-year Emeka Eneli, also rank in the top 10 in the Ivy League in total points. Kiingi and Drought are tied for eighth with 14 points and Eneli is tied for 10th with 13 points.
 
• Morales' average of 1.40 points per contest ranks third in the Ivy League, trailing Korzeniowski (1.57) and Stitz (1.43).

Helping the Team Out

• With his assist on Henry Hylbert's goal in last Saturday's win over Dartmouth, senior Connor Drought increased his assist total on the year to eight, which is tied for 12th nationally and is second in the Ivy League only behind Harvard's Willem Ebbinge (nine assists).
 
• Drought's eight assists are tied with Adamo Notarantonio (1995), Adam Skumawitz (2000), and Nico Nissl (2012) for the fourth-most by a Cornell player in a season.
 
• With Drought's next assist, he will assume sole possession of fourth place and would only trail Chris Agoliati (11 in 1972), Rob Elliott (10 in 1995), and Richard Stimpson (10 in 1998) on the all-time single-season list.
 
• Right behind Drought is senior Brandon Morales who has the eighth-most assists by a Cornell player in a season. Morales is currently tied with Stimpson (2000), Ian Pilarski (2001), Daniel Haber (2012), Tyler Bagley and Emeka Eneli (2021), who all had seven assists in their respective seasons.

Balanced Scoring Attack

• Cornell enters this afternoon's match with 102 points as a team, tied for the 22nd-most by a Division I team through games played on Nov. 1. The 102 points are the second-most by an Ivy League team, trailing Harvard who has 110 points.
 
• Senior midfielder Brandon Morales, junior defender Kisa Kiingi, senior defender Connor Drought, fifth-year forward Emeka Eneli, and sophomore forward Alioune Ka all have at least 10 points this season, marking the first time in Cornell history there has been five players with 10-plus points in a season.

Double-Digit Wins

• Freshman goalkeeper Ryan Friedberg has been the Big Red's go-to keeper this year, having started all 15 games this season. Friedberg has logged all but 11:25 of the Big Red's minutes this season, while posting a 12-3-0 record with a 1.01 goals-against average and a .681 save percentage.
 
• Friedberg is just the third Cornell goalkeeper since 1979, when goalkeeper wins were recorded, to register 12-plus wins in a season. Only Rick Pflasterer (15 in 2012) and Quinn O'Sullivan (14 wins in 1995) have more wins in a season.
 
• Following the win over Dartmouth, Friedberg broke a four-way tie for the third-most wins in a season, surpassing Hemant Sharma (1996), Ryan Shellow (2018), and Brady McSwain (2021), to assume third place.

Road Warriors

• Following its victory over Princeton on Oct. 22, Cornell improved to 26-10-1 on the road since the beginning of the 2018 season, good for a .716 win percentage.
 
• Cornell is one of six Division I schools to post a road win percentage north of .700 since 2018. Missouri State (.828) and Washington (.738) have higher percentages than the Big Red, while Georgetown (.712), Saint Mary's (.708), and New Hampshire (.703) are the remaining programs.
 
• Additionally, Cornell's 26 wins since the beginning of the 2018 season are tied for the second-most by a Division I program with High Point. Top-ranked Washington has the most road wins in the span (28).
 
• Following matches completed on Nov. 2, the Big Red is 8-1-0 on the road this season. Cornell's eight road victories are the most by any Division I program this season. Denver (7-1-3) and Western Michigan (7-1-1) are the lone two programs with seven road victories in 2022.

Having an Eye for the Goal

• The Big Red has scored 34 goals so far this year, marking the program's eighth time that Cornell has logged at least 34 goals in a season.
 
• It is the second consecutive year and the fifth time over the last 27 seasons Cornell has potted at least 34 goals.
 
• Dating back to 2019, Cornell has scored in 45 of its last 48 matches and in 80 of the 99 games (80.8 percent) played during John Smith's tenure as head coach at Cornell. The 80.8 percent figure ranks as the fourth-highest total by a Cornell head coach. It is the highest since Dan Wood (1971-75), the coach in which Smith's position is currently endowed for.

Drawing the Line

• Cornell, with its 12-3-0 record, is just one of six of the 212 active Division I programs to not play to a draw this season.

• Joining Cornell is Wake Forest (13-4-0), New Hampshire (12-4-0), UCF (6-7-0), Stony Brook (5-11-0), and Hartford (0-14-0).

Scouting the Bulldogs

• Yale enters today's match with a 6-4-4 overall record and a 1-3-1 mark in Ivy League play. The lone Ivy League victory for the Bulldogs came against Princeton in a 3-1 triumph on Oct. 8.
 
• The Bulldogs are currently on a four-game winless streak (0-3-1), having scored just three goals during the span.
 
• Last weekend, Yale and Columbia played to a scoreless draw at Rocco B. Commisso Stadium in New York. Yale had a 14-10 edge in shot attempts and a 7-3 advantage in shots on goal.
 
• Paolo Carroll has a Yale-leading seven goals and 15 points on the season. Kahveh Zahiroleslam is the only other Bulldog with a double-digit point total (10 points — four goals and two assists).
 
• Elian Haddock has started 13 of Yale's 14 matches so far this season. Haddock is 5-4-4 on the year with a 1.38 goals-against average and a .727 save percentage. With his three-save clean sheet against Columbia last weekend, it was his first shutout since Sept. 11 against Villanova.

Series vs. Yale

• Yale enters today's match with a 36-23-13 advantage in the all-time series. The Bulldogs have had the upper-hand in the series recently, winning the last five matches and outscoring Cornell 10-2.
 
• Cornell is looking to beat Yale for the first time since a 2-1 overtime victory at Reese Stadium on Oct. 17, 2015.
 
• Today's match marks the first time Cornell and Yale are playing against each other in November since Nov. 6, 1999, when Yale posted a 2-1 victory on Cornell's home field.