Women's soccer makes it 9 straight with victory over Columbia

Women’s soccer is on a roll, adding a ninth game to their win streak. Despite three consecutive losses earlier on in the season, the team is sporting an impressive 11-3 record heading into this week’s match. With their 3-1 win over Columbia this past Saturday, the Tigers are now 4-0 in the Ivy League and are tied for first place with the Harvard Crimson.

The Tigers came out strong, scoring two goals before the clock reached 15 minutes. In the 11th minute came the first goal from junior forward Tyler Lussi, who finished a long crossing pass from sophomore midfielder Vanessa Gregoire with a header right above Columbia’s goalkeeper Allison Spencer. Shortly after Lussi’s opening goal, freshman forward Mimi Asom scored the second goal, assisted by Gregoire and sophomore defender Mikaela Symanovich. “I think it’s important to get two early on in the game,” Gregoire told the Ivy League Digital Network about their early 2-0 lead, “but it’s also a very dangerous score because one goal could make a huge difference, so I think it was definitely very important for us to go out there and get those two first goals.”

Senior defender Emily Sura sealed their victory with the third and final goal, hammering in a long-distance shot taken from a free kick. Princeton’s shutout streak was ended, however, when Columbia’s Natalie Ambrose scored in the seventy-fifth minute.

Lussi and Asom are season standouts. Lussi scored her 11th goal of the season and the 39th of her career at Princeton. She is now tied for third place with Emily Behncke ’06 for top goal scoring in program history. Asom scored her ninth goal of the season and is just three short of Linda DeBoer ’86, who is the current record holder for most goals scored as a freshman. “They are definitely dangerous players. Anytime you play against them, you know that they have something very dangerous in them. They connect well, they are able to put the ball in the back of the net, and that’s definitely something defenders should be worried about,” Gregoire said in the same interview about her teammates after Saturday’s game, “It’s about them getting the job done, and that’s what they’re doing so far.”

The team as a unit has also been challenging past records. Their nine-game win streak is the program’s longest since its 12-game streak in 2012, and each game has had two or more goals scored by the Tigers. The team has won 11 out of 14 games for the first time since 2004 and has outscored their opponents 28-7.

The next highly anticipated game is against the Crimson, who are also in first place in the Ivy League with a record of 4-0. The showdown is scheduled to take place on Saturday in Cambridge. Gregoire said, “We love playing against them. It’s a huge game, a huge rivalry. A lot of people are getting ready to go. We have been all season, so it’s going to be a good game.”