Women's Soccer: Princeton falls one win short of Ivy title

The Tigers, whose stingy defense had powered the team all season, struggled to produce at the other end of the field against Penn, which needed only a draw to advance. After 110 minutes of play with the score still even at 0-0, the Tigers’ season was over.

Though the women barely missed qualifying for the postseason, the year was successful. They finished 9-6-1 overall and 4-2-1 in the Ivy League, making it head coach Julie Shackford’s 13th winning season in her 16-year tenure at Princeton.

A number of individual players received accolades for their performance, with four Tigers earning All-Ivy honors. Sophomores Caitlin Blosser, Jen Hoy and Allison Nabotoff were named to the second team while freshman Gabriella Guzman was awarded an honorable mention.

The players arrived fit and ready to play, with high expectations for the year.

“Our goal every year pretty much is to win the league and we usually have the tools ... to be able to do that,” Shackford said. “We were a pretty young team, [but] I still thought we could win the league.”

Early non-conference play signaled that the Tigers were back in top form. After dropping their first game to nationally ranked Rutgers, the Tigers bounced back with three straight wins against non-conference opponents, including a 6-3 thrashing of eventual NCAA Tournament qualifier James Madison.

“The James Madison game was as good of a game as any in my 16 years here,” Shackford said. “It was the type of game where everything went right and we could do no wrong.”

The trend quickly reversed with two close losses to Long Island and Hofstra, when the Tigers' offensive struggles resulted in a pair of 1-0 losses heading into the Ivy League portion of their schedule.

“We were getting outworked by Hofstra and some of the other teams,” senior midfielder and co-captain Kayleigh Iatorola said. “JMU gave us the confidence to know that we could beat those other teams.”

The women opened their Ivy League season with an away game against Yale.

“The first game is always big,” senior midfielder Alex Valerio said. “Because there are so few games in the Ivy League season ... you want to gain some confidence and momentum going into it.”

Hoy netted an early goal and the defense held off Yale’s attack to secure the win.

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“You want to start out with that win in your column,” Iatorola said. “That was crucial to giving us a chance at the championship.”

After beating Yale, the Tigers won four of their next five games, including conference victories against Dartmouth and Brown. They appeared to be on their way to an Ivy League championship with a perfect league record and momentum heading into the final four games, all against Ivy opponents.

But in the three matches before facing Penn, the Tigers mustered only two goals and dropped a pair of ugly losses to Columbia and Harvard, the latter a 4-0 loss at Princeton on homecoming weekend.

“I thought we were done after Columbia,” Valerio said. “That is the worst feeling in the world — for the season not to be over and you think you’re out [of contention for the title].”

The Tigers’ season was not over, however. Their title hopes stayed alive with a gritty 2-1 overtime win at Cornell and a little help from around the league to set up the final showdown with Penn at home. Shackford praised the enthusiasm of the crowd in the final game and was happy with how her team finished.

“If you look a the overall season, we were looking to win the [league] until the very last day,” she said, “In that perspective ... we were thrilled to be there that last day.”

Staff writer Randolph Brown contributed reporting.