Every game key for women's soccer in tight Ivy League race

Although the women's soccer season has just begun, in a sense the race for the Ivy crown is already in full swing. With no season-end tournament, the Ivy League bestows the title on the team with the best record in league play. And teams only play each other once — so for title contenders, each and every game is essential.

Princeton learned firsthand the importance of each Ivy game last season, when a loss to Yale marred its otherwise undefeated league record, and forced the Tigers to share the league title with Penn and Dartmouth.

So when the Tigers traveled to New Haven, Conn., last Saturday for their first Ivy contest, and shut out the Elis 2-0, they did not just avenge last year's defeat, but also took the first step towards one of their primary objectives for the season — an outright Ivy title.

At this early stage in the season, it would be premature to make any peremptory predictions about the way the title race will play out; only four Ivy teams have opened their league schedules. In addition to Princeton and Yale, Cornell and Columbia played last weekend — the Big Red defeated the Lions 2-1.

It will still be a couple of weeks before the pattern of this year's Ivy season begins to become evident. This weekend, Ivy play continues as Princeton hosts Dartmouth, Brown hosts Columbia, and Penn hosts Cornell; Harvard won't begin league play until the following weekend, when it takes on Brown.

Nevertheless, it can be said that Princeton's most likely rivals in the title race will be Harvard, Dartmouth, and Penn.

Like Princeton, all three of these schools had young teams last year, and did not suffer any critical losses to graduation. And like No. 23 Princeton, both Dartmouth and No. 25 Harvard are or have been nationally ranked this season.

Harvard finished fourth in the league last year behind the triumvirate tied at first. This year the Crimson will delay league play the longest of any Ivy team, but have not been slacking off; instead, they have begun their season with a slate of non-league games, including match-ups against some of the nation's top teams. So far Harvard is 2-1-0, having easily defeated Vermont and Central Connecticut, and narrowly lost to No. 12 Penn State; this weekend they travel to the Husky/Nike Invitational in Seattle to take on No. 6 Portland and No. 18 Washington.

Regardless of whether Harvard wins or loses, unless the Crimson get totally demoralized out west, it's possible that after playing such illustrious teams the Ivy League may seem like a piece of cake — especially with hapless Brown as Harvard's first league opponent. Up against the momentum that Harvard is likely to build up by the time it plays Princeton in late October, the Tigers will definitely have to be ready for the Crimson.

Dartmouth, ranked No. 21 in the preseason poll, returns seven seniors, including first-team all-Ivy Mary McVeigh. The Big Green advanced to the third round of the NCAA tournament last year only to lose to eventual champions Santa Clara, and will be gunning to advance to the third round for the third consecutive season this year. Dartmouth is currently 1-2-1 on the season after losing to Iowa and No. 16 Virginia, beating New Hampshire, and tying Richmond. When the Big Green arrive on Saturday to take on the Tigers, it will be their first Ivy match of the season.

Penn's strength lies in its offense, with the sophomore scoring duo of Katy Cross and Rachelle Snyder returning to the vanguard of an attack which led the Ivies last season in points (115), goals (39) and assists (37). The Quakers are no slackers on the other side of the field — they also led the league in shutouts last year. So far this year the Quakers are 2-2-0, and they haven't played any notable opponents yet, so it remains to be seen if they can match last year's achievements — which included a 12-game unbeaten streak going into the national tournament, where they lost to Villanova in the first round. They haven't won a game since – but opening their Ivy season against Cornell, they should be able to build some of last year's season-end momentum back up before long.

Yale, Columbia, and Cornell occupied the middle of the Ivy pack last season and will probably stay somewhere in the middle this year. At the other end of the league is Brown, which did not win a single league game last year; the Bears are still struggling to rebuild their offense in the aftermath of graduation 2001. While each of these teams does have a few standout players, none of them can match the depth and breadth of talent that characterizes the rest of the league.

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However, just because these teams do not seem to have the talent and momentum necessary to make a run for a title does not mean that they cannot play spoiler. With the stakes so high whenever two Ivy teams meet on the soccer field, just about every Ivy game is competitive. Plus, the low-scoring nature of soccer means that a team cannot afford to let down its guard for even one play, even against a seemingly lesser opponent – everything can change with just one lucky shot, one missed pass.

As Princeton knows from last year, dropping a game, even to a team that isn't itself a title contender, can trip up a contender. While the Tigers have already taken care of the team that tripped them up last year, they've still got seven Ivy games to go — all crucial.