ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell women's soccer team returns to Berman Field for a rare midweek Ivy League contest when it hosts Columbia for a 4:30 p.m. match on Wednesday afternoon.
MATCH INFORMATION
Columbia at Cornell
SITE: Berman Field – Ithaca, N.Y. (natural surface)
RECORDS: Columbia (7-2-1, 1-1-0 Ivy League), Cornell (3-2-4, 0-2-0 Ivy League)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 20-16-0
BROADCAST: ESPN+
Stats: CornellBigRed.com
LAST TIME OUT
Hailey Rorick's goal in the 82nd minute lifted Dartmouth to a 1-0 victory over Cornell at Burnham Field in Hanover, N.H., on a picturesque afternoon last Saturday.
Hanah Curtin and Daisy Granholm recorded the assists for the Big Green, who also had a one-save clean sheet by senior goalkeeper Emily Hardy.
Junior goalkeeper
Erica Fox stopped four shots in the setback for the Big Red, with three of her four saves coming in the second half.
Reagan Pauwels recorded Cornell's lone shot on goal in the 59th minute.
IT'S BEEN A WHILE...
Cornell is playing a conference contest on a Wednesday for the first time in 31 years on Wednesday.
The last instance in which the Big Red played an Ivy League contest on a Wednesday was back on Sept. 16, 1992, when Cornell also played Columbia, with the match occurring on the Lions' home pitch.
Wednesday will be Cornell's first-ever home Ivy League match held on that day of the week and just the third midweek home conference contest in program history. The other two instances came on Nov. 7, 1996, a 1-0 win over Penn, and Oct. 24, 2019, a 2-0 loss to No. 24-ranked Brown.
HOME, SWEET, HOME
After losing its home opener last season, Cornell is unbeaten over its previous 10 home matches (5-0-5), which stands as the longest home unbeaten streak in program history.
In last Tuesday's victory over Colgate,
Sydney Malaga scored in the 84th minute to break open a scoreless contest and lift Cornell to the 1-0 win over its Central New York rival. The victory established the program record, besting the previous record of a nine-match stretch during the 1985 and 1986 seasons (8-0-1).
Entering Wednesday afternoon's match, Cornell is one of 23 active women's soccer programs with an active unbeaten streak of at least 10 contests on its home pitch. The Big Red and Brown (12) are the only two Ivy League programs with double-digit unbeaten streaks on their respective home pitches.
With a win or tie on Wednesday, Cornell will extend its unbeaten streak to 11 matches and be tied for 14th place on the active list with Bucknell and Northern Iowa. Arkansas (27), Alabama (26), Stanford (21), South Alabama (19), UCLA and Memphis (17), Maine and Georgetown (15), North Carolina (14), and Santa Clara (13) currently assume the top 10 positions for the longest active unbeaten streak.
NOTHING BUT NET
After being held scoreless in Saturday's loss to Dartmouth, Cornell saw its streak of consecutive matches with a goal end.
The Big Red had scored in each of its previous 10 matches before last Saturday's contest, which was the program's longest goal-scoring streak since establishing the record of 13 in 2003. Cornell's streak was the longest by any Ivy League program, but Dartmouth now assumes first place with its own 10-match goal-scoring streak.
TEAM EFFORT
Thanks to
Sydney Malaga's game-winning goal last Tuesday, Cornell has five players with multiple goals scored this season. It is the most multi-goal scorers in a season for the Big Red since it also had a quintet with two-plus goals in 2013.
Should another Cornell player register a second goal this season, it would be the first time the Big Red has had six multi-goal scorers since 1999 (6).
There have been eight previous instances of Cornell having at least six players with multiple goals: 1986, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1999.
THANKS FOR THE HELP!
Senior midfielder
Reagan Pauwels recorded her team-leading fourth assist last Tuesday in the Big Red's victory over Colgate.
Pauwels' became the eighth player (10th instance) since 2003 to register at least four assists in a single season and is the first Cornell player with a four-assist season since
Ava Laden in 2021.
With another assist, Pauwels would be the first Big Red player with a five-assist season since Caroline Growney in 2015. With two more assists, Pauwels would match Donna Eberhardt (1988), Amy Snow (1991 & 1992), Rebecca D'Aleo (1993), Lori Penny (1993), and Dempsey Banks (2013) for the fifth-most assists by a Cornell player in a season.
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
After setting the single-season record for ties with five last season, Cornell is already on the verge of matching that mark this season.
Cornell has played to four draws this season, tied for the second-most in a campaign, which was also done in 2002 (8-5-4) and 2015 (9-4-4).
Before its loss to Princeton on Sept. 23, Cornell had drawn in three consecutive matches, the second time in program history in which three successive contests had resulted in ties. The other instance occurred when the Big Red tied with Providence and St. John's at the 2002 ECAC Tournament and drew with Stony Brook in the 2003 season opener.
ANCIENT EIGHT'S SUCCESS
Through matches completed on Sunday, the Ivy League has excelled on the pitch, registering a combined 45-16-18 record, leading to a combined .684 win percentage, pacing all Division I conferences that sponsor soccer.
The Ivy League boasts a 32-point lead over the SEC (87-38-37 — .651) and a 47-point advantage over the Big Ten (92-44-40 — .636).
Entering this week's Ivy League slate, all eight members of the Ancient Eight have win percentages of at least .550, while seven programs boast win percentages north of .600.
Only the Ivy League and the SEC are the lone two Division I women's soccer conferences to have all its members' win percentages be at least .500. The Big Ten (13-of-14) and Pac-12 (11-of-12) are one program shy of matching the criteria.
IVY LEAGUE PRESEASON POLL
Cornell was picked to finish sixth in the 2023 Ivy League women's soccer preseason poll, the conference office announced on Aug. 24.
Brown received 12 of 16 possible first-place votes, finishing with an Ivy League-best 123 points. Harvard earned three first-place votes, placing second with 113 points. Yale registered the final last-place vote, garnering 88 points to assume third place.
Princeton (78 points) and Columbia (74 points) were picked fourth and fifth, respectively, while Cornell (35 points), Dartmouth (33 points), and Penn (32 points) rounded out the poll.
SCOUTING COLUMBIA
Columbia enters Wednesday afternoon's contest with a 7-2-1 overall record and a 1-1-0 mark in Ivy League action.
The Lions come into the contest having conceded just three goals all season long, all of which have come in Columbia's pair of losses to No. 8-ranked Santa Clara, 1-0, and Harvard, 2-0, last Saturday.
Highlighted by stout goalkeeping by Paige Nurkin (6-2-1, 0.38, .919), Columbia enters Monday's matches with a 0.30 goals-against average as a team, ranking fourth among Division I women's soccer programs. Only Portland (0.20), Iowa (0.25), and Old Dominion (0.27) have clips higher than the Lions, who pace all Division I programs with its .923 save percentage. Only Dartmouth (.918), Iowa (.914), and Portland (.900) are the other programs with at least a .900 save percentage this season.
Columbia has relied on numerous players offensively this season, as six players have at least two goals, and 13 players have at least one assist. Seven out of the 16 players with at least one point have at least five points to their credit this season.
Kat Jordan paces the Lions offense with 10 points, recording a team-leading four goals. Maia Tabion is right behind Jordan with nine points (three goals, three assists). Tabion is tied with Nata Ramirez and Madi Pilla for the team lead in helpers.
COLUMBIA'S LAST TIME OUT
Columbia fell to Harvard, 2-0, last Saturday at Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium, snapping the Lions' 12-match home unbeaten streak and its six consecutive matches with clean sheets.
Harvard scored twice in the opening 15 minutes to guide the visiting Crimson to its very Ivy League victory of 2023.
The Crimson out-shot Columbia, 13-6, while the Lions were held to just two shots on goal, which came off the boots of Kat Jordan and Claire Pinnie.
Paige Nurkin made three saves while spending all 90 minutes in goal for the Lions.
36 YEARS, 229 MILES, 36 MEETINGS
Cornell leads the all-time series over its Empire State rival, 20-16-0, despite Columbia having won 13 of the last 16 contests against the Big Red.
Last season, Columbia posted a 1-0 victory over Cornell at Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium in New York City, thanks to a 40th-minute marker by Shira Cohen. Paige Nurkin logged a three-save clean sheet for the victors, while
Erica Fox also had a three-save performance for Cornell in the setback.
Over the last five meetings at Berman Field against Columbia, Cornell has won three, which includes a 1-0 victory on Sept. 25, 2021, which snapped the program's 21-match losing streak to Ivy League opponents.
UP NEXT
Cornell will remain on East Hill for its next match when it takes on Harvard at Berman Field on Saturday. First touch between the Big Red and Crimson is scheduled for 2 p.m.
The contest will serve as the women's soccer program's Mental Health Awareness Game in addition to its annual reunion weekend contest.
