This year's Eastern College Athletic Conference standings divide pretty clearly into two layers.
There are those teams — Harvard, Dartmouth, St. Lawrence, Princeton and Brown — with healthy out-of-conference records, national rankings and double-digit conference points.
Then there are those teams — Yale, Colgate, Cornell and Vermont — with none of those things.
In their last six games of the season, the Tigers will play teams from both ends of the conference. This weekend, Princeton takes on Yale at home tonight, then in New Haven tomorrow night.
No. 8 Princeton (14-6-2 overall, 7-3-0 ECAC) is currently fourth in the conference after making short work of both Colgate and Cornell last Saturday and Sunday.
In contrast to Princeton's dominating performance last weekend, Yale (7-15-2, 3-7-0), sixth in the conference, put in a mixed effort against the same opponents. The Elis defeated Colgate, 4-2, on Saturday, in their first Ivy League win in two years.
But on Sunday Yale lost, 1-3, to Cornell — the day after the Big Red had been shut out, 6-0, by Princeton.
With six games left to play including this weekend's, the fourth-place Tigers have 14 conference points – just one more than fifth-place Brown. This weekend's games with Yale could be a good opportunity for the Tigers to collect a couple more points.
Here's a preview of how the Tigers and the Elis stack up with each other.
Scoring
Advantage: Princeton
The Elis are led offensively by one Natalie and two Deannas: freshman forward Natalie Babony has 10 goals and 15 assists, and senior forward Deanna McDevitt has 11 goals and 10 assists. Freshman forward Deanna Caplette has eight goals and 13 assists.
Princeton's senior forward Andrea Kilbourne leads the Tiger offense. Named ECAC Player of the Week after scoring five goals and adding two assists this weekend against Cornell and Colgate, Kilbourne leads the team with 12 goals and 14 assists on the season – 10 of those goals in ECAC competition.
Junior forward Gretchen Anderson has also been a strong contributor, with 12 goals and 11 assists.
So far this season Yale has been narrowly outscored by its opponents, 60-70, and even more dramatically within the conference, 16-39.
In comparison, the Tigers have outscored their opponents 66-42 overall, and 34-18 in the ECAC.
Keeping opponents from scoring
Advantage: Princeton
Defense has been a weakness for Yale in ECAC competition, the team has allowed 39 goals. Eli freshman goalie Sarah Love has been playing more than senior Nicolette Franck. Love has posted a .909 save percentage on the season and a 2.98 goals against average for a 5-13-1 record.
Princeton's standout goalie, junior Megan Van Beusekom has a .914 save percentage on the season and a 2.40 GAA within the ECAC (.923/2.23 overall).
Home ice
Advantage: neutral
The Tigers and the Elis are splitting the hosting duties this weekend. But when the Tigers travel to New Haven for the second game of the weekend, Yale should not have much of a home advantage. The Elis are only 4-11-2 at home (compared to 3-3-0 away) and within the conference just 1-5-0 at home (2-2-0 away). Princeton is 7-2-1 at home and 7-4-1 away, and in the conference 3-1-0 at home and 4-2-0 away.
If the Tigers can play as dominantly as they did last weekend, they can beat the Elis. But the home crowd may play a difference, but that depends on fan support.
Good thing, because they'll need to pick up all the momentum they can get while they can. The following Saturday, Princeton faces Harvard, which currently has the nation's longest win streak (17) and sits atop both the ECAC standings and the national rankings.
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