W. Soccer Readies For Unbeaten Tigers

Only one undefeated, untied team remains in Division I women’s soccer this season. It’s Princeton, this weekend’s opponent for the Harvard women’s soccer team, and the timing couldn’t be better for the Crimson, which is in desperate need of a few marquee wins.

Harvard’s hopes of earning a seventh-straight NCAA tournament berth suffered a serious blow with a 3-2 defeat against Yale on Saturday, but the Crimson (6-5-1, 2-1-1 Ivy) can still reassert itself against three nationally-ranked opponents in its last four games. Tomorrow’s 7:30 p.m. game at No. 15 Princeton (12-0, 5-0) will be the first grand stage for redemption.

The Tigers’ perch above the Crimson in the national rankings is unprecedented—a complete role reversal from last season when Harvard was ranked No. 12 entering the Princeton game. The Tigers feel that this year’s team is the deepest and strongest they’ve ever had, and they won’t give in easily to a Crimson team fighting to save its season.

“We know we have to come out on fire,” said senior forward Joey Yenne. “We don’t want to think that our season’s over.”

With an NCAA selection committee to impress, the Crimson couldn’t happier to have the opportunity to deal the Tigers their first defeat the season, on their homecoming weekend no less. Despite the team’s current standing, Harvard remains the historical favorite. No one else has richer tradition of beating Princeton.

The Crimson had beaten the Tigers eight straight times before last season’s 2-1 overtime loss. Righting the result of last year’s game is an inspiration to Harvard, who fell in that meeting despite a 21-4 shot advantage. Princeton, meanwhile, hasn’t even scored a home goal against Harvard during coach Julie Shackford’s tenure.

As both teams are overwhelmed with reasons to play the game of their lives tomorrow night, the Harvard-Princeton showdown promises a better competitive environment than any Ivy women’s soccer contest this season.

“We know [the Tigers] are going to have a ton of fans there, and they’re going to be rowdy,” said junior co-captain Katie Hodel. “I think everyone’s looking forward to the atmosphere.”

The player that will gather the most attention from the Princeton faithful—and the Harvard defense—is sophomore Esmeralda Negron, the team’s leading scorer for each of the past two seasons. Negron is well-remembered as the player who delivered the game-winning header against Harvard in overtime last season. Unfortunately for the Crimson, big goals have become a habit for Negron since then. She has five game-winning goals and two more overtime winners this season.

Harvard will also have to watch out for Emily Behncke, a starting freshman who is second on the team with five goals, and Kristina Fontanez, who also has five goals—all off the bench.

The Crimson had been a tough team to score upon prior to Saturday’s game, when it held a four-game shutout streak. But Yale abruptly ended that streak with three goals.

“Basically, we let up three soft goals against Yale,” Yenne said. “With a little more concentration and communication we’ll be able to take care of those problems.”

Specifically, the team credited the breakdowns against Yale to the simultaneous effect of miscommunication, a lack of pressure on the ball and losing track of players in the defensive end. Each of the Elis’ first two goals came in transition with little trouble.

Harvard has been eager to correct such problems in practice.

“We’ve really been working on increasing the communication and just putting pressure on people when they have the ball and not letting them turn, and making sure that we are aware where our opponents are all over the field at all times,” Hodel said. “We’ve been working on that the past few days, and I’m sure we’ll continue to do that all the way up until the game.”

Offensively, Harvard will need Yenne, senior Beth Totman and junior Katie Westfall to manufacture shots through a physical Tiger defense and continue to take advantage of their scoring opportunities. Yenne, in particular, has come up big with two goals against Princeton in her career.

Scoring chances have come few and far between for Princeton opponents this season, as the Tigers have given up just six goals all season. Junior goalkeeper Jean Poster has been tough to beat with a 0.51 goals-against average and a penalty-shot save to her credit this season.

There’s one intangible that Harvard has that Princeton clearly lacks—experience in big games this season. The Crimson played a grueling nonconference schedule with games against No. 10 Penn State, No. 5 Portland and a road game in front of a hostile crowd of 1,850 at then-No. 21 Washington.

Harvard coach Tim Wheaton has long said that the difficult schedule would be the perfect preparation for Ivy and regional play, but the team’s unusually disappointing results against Yale and Hartford this season have done nothing to support his claim.

But a victory over Princeton, whose nationally-recognized undefeated status has been aided largely by an unambitious nonconference schedule, would provide the perfect contrast.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.