ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell women's soccer senior midfielder Ava Jung has been named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week, the league office announced Monday afternoon.

Jung, a native of Richmond, Va., played all 90 minutes as a defensive central midfielder in Saturday's 1-0 win over Yale in the Ivy League opener at Berman Field. Playing in front of the back line, she helped hold the Bulldogs to six shot attempts, two of which were on goal. It was Cornell's fourth clean sheet in its last five matches, a span in which the Big Red have allowed just one goal. All five of the team's clean sheets have come in the last seven matches.

Moving into a larger role of late, Jung has started each of Cornell's last three matches, the first three starts of her career. After playing 106 minutes across seven appearances off the bench in her first three seasons, she has logged 312 minutes in six appearances this season, 251 of which have come in her last three starts.

The honor is Jung's first career Ivy League weekly award, and she is the first Cornell student-athlete to earn the league's defensive weekly honor since goalkeeper Natalie Medugno '26 on Sept. 29, 2025. Jung is also the second Big Red player honored by the Ivy League this season, joining fellow senior midfielder Emily Gibbons, who was named Offensive Player of the Week on Aug. 24.

Cornell (4-3-2, 1-0-0 Ivy) returns to action Saturday, Oct. 3, when it travels to Harvard (7-2-1, 1-0-0 Ivy) for a 1 p.m. match at Jordan Field in Cambridge, Mass. The Crimson have won six straight, most recently a 4-3 road win against Ivy League preseason favorite Princeton on Sept. 26. The Big Red will try to end a 31-match winless streak against Harvard, a stretch in which they are 0-26-5.