Ivy League Field Hockey Teams Neck and Neck

Harvard coach Sue Capies said at the beginning of this season that the Ivy League would be "up in the air." After one week of league play, few can deny that prediction.

Coming into the season, Penn was the favorite to take the league championship. The Quakers went 6-0 in the league and finished in the top 15 in the nation. They continued that pace at the beginning of this season, winning their first two, before falling to tenth-ranked Delaware, 3-0, in their third game of the year.

Despite a subsequent 1-0 overtime win over 20th-ranked Lafayette the next week, the squad came into league play on Saturday against Dartmouth (2-2-1 overall, 0-0-1 Ivy) with a bad taste in its mouth. That taste didn't go away: the Quakers tied the Big Green, denizens of the league's lower division last year.

What made the loss worse was the brilliant recent play of the Quakers' main challenger, Princeton. The Tigers are undefeated through five games, including a 2-0 win over Cornell on Saturday. They have given up only four goals this season and are ranked 16th in the country, while Quakers are ranked 18th.

In other league action, Yale (2-2-1 overall, 0-0-1 league) and Brown (1-4-0 overall, 0-0-1 league) went head to head for two hours, but nothing happened. The game ended in a 0-0 tie, illustrating both the parity and high quality of goaltending in the league this season.

Harvard is the only team in the league that has yet to have a league game. The Crimson are 1-3-0 overall.

Columbia does not have a field hockey team.

Individual Leaders

Games involving Ivy League teams this season have been characterized by low scoring and high save percentages. Those developments are reflected in the stats of the league leaders.

In overall scoring, Cari Hills of Cornell is leading the league with 13 points (five goals, three assists). She is followed by Dartmouth's Sarah Devens, nine points (three goals, three assists); and Princeton's Liz Fagan, eight points (three goals, two assists). No Harvard players rank in the league's top ten.

In league scoring, Fagan, Penn's Abby Herbine, Dartmouth's Allison Pell and Princeton's Amory Rowe each have two points (one goal)

In overall goalkeeping, Penn's Suzy Pures is the toast of the league. She has made 38 saves this season and has a save average of 90.5 percent. Princeton's Liz Hill is second with 50 and 92.6, respectively, and Cornell's Stacey Scavo is third with 33 and 84.6, respectively.

In Ivy goalkeeping, Hill, Brown's Beth Hunt and Yale's Janelle Kellman lead the league with save averages of 100 percent and seven, five and 13 saves, respectively.

Harvard's Jessica Milhollin is sixth in the league in overall goalkeeping with 55 saves and an 83.3 percent save average.

Individual Honors

Pures and Princeton freshman Kathleen Kelly were award winners in the league this past week.

Pures garnered player-of-the-week honors. She recorded her third shutout of the season in the team's 1-0 win over Lafayette. She then made 20 saves against Dartmouth, helping to preserve a 1-1 tie.

Kelly, a midfielder, was given rookie-of-the-week honors. Although she did not have statistics last week, Kelly was singled out as one of the dominating players on the field for the Tigers this week.

She plays on the left side of the field, where she set up many shots and fed the ball into the circle several times.

She has two assist on the year, both coming as the in-bounder for penalty corners.