Sixth-straight win in sight

There is nothing like dangling the prospect of payback in front of a team's face to get it fired up and ready to pounce. And pounce is exactly what the women's soccer team intends to do tomorrow against conference foe Columbia on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.

With last year's 3-2 loss to the Lions (6-3-3 overall, 1-1-0 Ivy League) at the front of their minds, the Tigers (5-4-1, 2-0-0) will look for revenge while aiming to keep their current five-game winning streak alive.

"I think that we still carry some bitterness from our loss to Columbia last year," senior midfielder Regina Yang said. "This year we have much more of a desire to go out and dominate them."

Princeton is starting to look like it has the talent to back up this strong desire — the Tigers have had 10 different players get in on the goalscoring action this season. Since senior midfielder and captain Diana Matheson rejoined the team three games ago, the offense has been deadly. Princeton's scoring average has climbed to almost two goals per game.

Tomorrow's game should prove to be a good test for the Tigers, however, as Columbia has given up an average of less than a goal per game through its first 12 contests. The Lion defense led the team to an unbeaten streak of eight games before a loss to Penn last weekend.

While the defensive unit has remained steady, three different goalies have been juggling the net-minding responsibilities for Columbia. This lack of consistency in playing time leaves the Lions vulnerable in goal. Princeton's midfielders and forwards — including sophomore Vicki Anagnostopoulos, junior Aarti Jain and junior Jen Om — should look to take advantage of this lack of stability and shoot often.

If its goalkeeping is suspect, Columbia's offense is anything but. The Lions have two players with five goals each — forwards Chrissy Butler and Allison Leonard — and one player, midfielder Sophie Reiser, with four. All three have good speed and could pose a threat at any time in the game, especially on breakaways.

Princeton's defense, led by senior goalkeeper and captain Maren Dale, will have to be on its toes, as the Lions regularly attempt to feed balls to the corners for Butler and Leonard to convert. If the Tigers can deny Columbia's forwards the ball, they will be effective in thwarting the Lions' offensive chances.

Starting the attacking drives from the backfield is certainly something the Tigers have been looking to improve on recently. Transitioning from offense to defense and vice versa needs to be done as a cohesive whole for the Tigers to be successful.

"We are working on defending and attacking as a unit," Yang said. "The emphasis needs to be on moving up and down the field as a team."

In addition to the transition game, the Tigers will need to improve on their ability to play the full 90 minutes. Princeton both scores and gives up more goals in the second half than in the first, with many more corner kicks allowed in the second half.

"We tend to show moments of brilliance with a lot of mediocre play in between," Yang said. "Overall, we need to have more consistency when we face Columbia."

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As they learn to gel and become more consistent as a team, the Tigers have found something that they desperately needed back when their record stood at 0-4-1: confidence.

"The words 'zero, four and one,' were difficult to say," Yang said. "Now that we are actually on a five-game winning streak, we can carry this confidence forward into our next games. We have the positive momentum to move forward and take on any opponent we face."