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New Harvard Heroine - Crimson Striker Melanie Baskind Looks Like Harvard's New Top Scoring Option

If you’re a fan of the Ivy League, you could probably approach the last few seasons with a glass half full approach or a glass half empty approach. On the positive side, the Ivies have still proven competitive for the most part with all but the elite in the world of college soccer. As some of the recruits being pulled in this year show, the Ancient Eight are also still able to draw in some finely talented players that would hardly be out of place at many programs in the bigger conferences around the country. And for sheer drama, you often can’t beat the Ivy League, with storied rivalries and title races that often go down to the very last day.

The bad? Well, Princeton’s famous run to the College Cup is looking more and more like an anomaly in the world of modern college soccer. While people often forget that that Tigers team was seeded and thus not a true Cinderella in the sense of the word, it was still a surprise to see an Ivy League team able to make such an extended run. The situation for the eight members of the conference is a little more tenuous these days. While the upper crust of the league can usually still be found in the RPI Top 100, they’re also finding it much harder to pull down at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. Last season, there wasn’t really a single Ivy club that could make a realistic case for an at-large bid.

The question now is if the Ivy’s overall slipping power profile is a permanent shift in the college soccer landscape or merely just cyclical, with a move back up the pecking order inevitable. The late start that typifies the league probably doesn’t help, but that’s just a fact of life for the Ancient Eight that’s not likely to change any time soon. Regardless of if the league is back in the hunt for an at-large bid this year, whoever does emerge from the Ivy into the NCAA Tournament will undoubtedly have some impressive talent and could just win a game or two if given the right matchup.

(Teams listed in order of final 2010 RPI ranking.)

You can’t really talk about the magic of the College Cup without mentioning PRINCETON. While that Tigers team was probably a lot better than most would remember them being considering Princeton’s mid-major status, their 2004 run to the Final Four was the stuff of dreams that fuel every underdog in the college soccer world. It capped off an amazing renaissance of a program that had long been left for dead in the college soccer world. Under the thumb of Bob Malekoff, Princeton was a successful side in the early days of the Ivy League, winning the 1982 league title and also making it to the Elite Eight of the then still very formative years of the NCAA Tournament. Princeton would get back to the Big Dance, still not quite as big in those days, a year later.

But then, the Tigers essentially became a program whose development and evolution became frozen in time. After Malekoff departed in 1984, four more coaches came and went, none of whom could bring more silverware back to New Jersey and end the Tigers’ woe. As Princeton’s postseason drought eclipsed a decade, the program turned towards Julie Shackford, a club legend as a player at William & Mary and a budding coaching star after four seasons building Carnegie Mellon’s program from the ground up. The transformation of the Princeton program wasn’t an overnight one, but patience produced dividends as the Tigers qualified for their first NCAA Tournament in sixteen years in 1999 and ended their eighteen year Ivy League title drought one season later.

Little did many know that it was the start of a golden era for Princeton women’s soccer, the program winning four league titles in five seasons from 2000-2004 and advancing to six straight NCAA Tournaments, culminating with 2004′s appearance in the College Cup. It’s been slightly less magical since then for the Tigers who have always been respectable but have only netted one more Ivy League title and NCAA Tournament berth since their College Cup run in 2004.

Princeton entered 2010 coming off the back of a disappointing fifth place finish in the league, and the seven wins were the fewest for the program since 1996, Shackford’s second season in charge. The Tigers started out the season in decent shape despite a loss at state rivals Rutgers, winning their next three, including a wild 6-3 match with James Madison. A couple of hard luck 1-0 losses to James Madison and Long Island followed before the Tigers got to sink their teeth into Ivy League play. Princeton started out well with wins in their first three league contests and a non-conference victory over Patriot League contenders Lehigh to boot.

But Shackford’s side would come back towards the pack with two straight league losses, 2-0 to Columbia, and a very damaging 4-0 loss to Harvard at home. The pounding the Tigers took by the Crimson looked to reveal the shakiness of their title aspirations, but a key 2-1 win away to Cornell and results elsewhere meant the title would go down to the last day in a match with Penn. The Tigers had home advantage, but Penn knew that all they needed was a draw to lift the title. Despite a valiant, battling effort, the Tigers could find no way through the Penn defense, and the Quakers lifted the league title with a 0-0 draw on Princeton’s home turf. It was a bitter end to a season which had seen Shackford and her Tigers rebound nicely from the disappointment of a season ago.

Princeton’s success last season was largely built on the back of a defense that, while not totally overwhelming, was still good enough to be considered among the league’s best. The Tigers’ defensive prowess was all the more impressive considering that the squad was playing without star goalkeeper Alyssa Pont for almost the entire year. Having established herself as the league’s best netminder over the past few seasons, Pont went down with a season ending injury after two matches, throwing the Tigers’ goalkeeping situation into turmoil.

Junior Kristin Watson stepped into the breach despite not being on the team in 2009 and only seeing action in four matches as a reserve in her freshman season in 2008. She performed admirably but also went down injured at the end of the season, leaving third stringer Claire Pinciaro to don the gloves for the most important match of the season against Penn, in which she kept a clean sheet. Pont has graduated, but Watson and Pinciaro both return and get some added competition from the Tigers’ recruiting class. Darcy Hargadon, one of those newcomers, is arguably the Tigers’ top recruit of this class and could enter camp as the favorite to win the starting job in goal for Shackford’s team. Watson will probably be the favorite to start the season in goal, but Hargadon comes in with too much promise to be discounted entirely.

Whoever ends up in goal should have an experienced and talented backline in front of them. The team does lose Diane Metcalf-Leggette, whose career seems to have been curtailed by injuries. Despite that setback, Princeton does return the team’s best defender, junior Alison Nabatoff, the 2009 Ivy League Co-Rookie of the Year who had another solid season for the Tigers last year despite missing a few games before league play. Also back are Kim Menafra, a senior who has started every match for the Tigers the past two seasons, and Kacie Kergides, who had a good rookie campaign, starting twelve matches for Princeton and dishing out the game winning assist against Brown last year.

The defense may have to be on top of their game with the offense misfiring at times last season. It was a little bit befuddling, because the Tigers attack wasn’t all that bad outside of league play but hit the skids for the most part against Ivy League opposition. Californian midfielder Caitlin Blosser had a fine season on paper with six goals, seven assists, including three against Seton Hall, and three match winning strikes. But despite her breakout season, Blosser was only good for two goals and two assists against Ivy teams, a mark that likely has to go up if the Tigers are to contend for the postseason in 2011.

Princeton’s leading goalscorer last year though was a super sub, in the form of junior Jen Hoy who only started twice but tallied seven goals, including four match winners on the year. Hoy’s finest hour came when she nabbed a hat trick against James Madison in Princeton’s thrilling 6-3 win over the Dukes. All but one of Hoy’s strikes came out of league play though, but if she can replicate that form as a starter, she could prove to be a big weapon both in and out of the league. Kalie Bartholomew started thirteen matches last year but has only scored once in the past two seasons. The team gets an infusion of offensive talent through its latest recruiting class as well, with Liana Cornacchio coming in, and already winning plaudits from Shackford for her positioning.

In midfield, Princeton takes a couple of hits with the loss of Lauren Whatley and Kayleigh Iatrola but does return one to watch for the future in sophomore Gabriella Guzman who was impressive in her first season with the Tigers and scored against Seton Hall in her rookie campaign. She figures to play a more important role this season with Princeton and could nail down a starting role in either midfield or defense. Also likely to start are junior Stephanie Iantorno, sister of Notre Dame’s Erica, and senior Sara Chehrehsa, who could also line up up front. Another freshman, winger Melissa Downey can create and score in equal measure and could also see major minutes this year.

Shackford’s Tigers look a solid group all over the field that could very well benefit immediately from a talented bunch of newcomers making their way to New Jersey this season. But Princeton doesn’t seem to have that extra oomph, that star player to push them over the top this year. The defense should take care of itself, but the Tigers likely need someone on the offense to take a big step forward if Princeton are to contend for its first league title since 2008. You’d fancy them to finish in the top half of the table this year, but it’s a little bit of a stretch to call them title favorites at this juncture.

Stability and success has returned to Boston and the Crimson of HARVARD after a few trying seasons in the middle of the decade. Tim Wheaton’s long reign at the head of the program brought seven league titles, ten NCAA Tournament appearances, and three appearances in the Elite Eight. After him came two rather ill-fated one-year sojourns. Stephanie Foster came to Boston in 2005 and had a rather tame season and jetted off to Evanston to take the Northwestern job at the end of the season. Ex-Dartmouth head coach Erica Walsh was next into the hot seat and tipped to enjoy some success after a very productive stint as boss of the Big Green.

Instead, her one year reign was a comedy of errors, leading to a 3-13-1 record, easily the worst season in program history. Walsh somehow emerged unscathed after that disaster, floating into University Park with a golden parachute to take over at Penn State. Harvard’s third coach in three years was a more trusted hand, that of veteran coach Ray Leone, who was coming off a six-year stint out west at Arizona State. The move was a bit of a gamble since Leone had seen diminishing results in Tempe, but at least the Crimson brass were likely confident that Leone wouldn’t be jumping at the first job that came open come season’s end.

After a recovery into mid-table in Leone’s first season in charge, the Crimson rebounded in a big way in 2008 as Harvard brought home their first Ivy League title since 1999 and advanced to their first NCAA Tournament since 2004. Leone added a second title in three seasons to Harvard’s trophy case a year later as the Crimson went back-to-back with their title triumphs. As 2010 approached, Harvard aimed to go one better and win their third straight Ivy league title while also possibly advancing past the first round of the Big Dance since 2001.

The season started out roughly for Leone’s side who only won one of their first five matches, although to be fair, they did take on four teams who’d finish in the RPI Top 65 at the end of the year. The Crimson would drop their Ivy League opener against Penn in a 4-3 thriller before rebounding with wins over despised rival Yale and Cornell. A loss to Brown put Harvard’s title ambitions on life support while a win over Princeton kept hope alive. Briefly. A 3-2 defeat to Dartmouth snuffed out those remaining hopes, and a 2-0 win over Columbia was of little consequence at the end of the day. The Crimson had brought home another winning season but weren’t really in the mix for an at-large bid.

Harvard enjoyed the unique circumstance of having the league’s best offense last season but was equally cursed with the Ivy’s worst defense. Rather worryingly for Leone, it’s the former situation that seems more likely to change in 2011. That’s because the Crimson lose club legend, four-time All-Ivy First Team selection, and 2010 NSCAA All-American Katherine Sheeleigh. On her way to last season’s Ivy League Player of the Year award, Sheeleigh ripped apart opposing defenses to the tune of nine goals and seven assists, including five goals and three assists in league play to lead the league in scoring. The amazing thing is that she managed to accomplish those scoring feats despite playing in just fifteen matches. Who knows how many points she would’ve racked up had she played in twenty plus matches at a school who played more matches?

The Crimson also bid adieu to midfielders Kerry Kartsonis and Gina Wideroff this offseason, although neither were real offensive forces for Harvard last season. Leone can take heart though in the fact that the cupboard isn’t bare in Boston. Senior Melanie Baskind, who also doubles as a member of the Crimson’s lacrosse team, looks set to step into Sheeleigh’s sizable shoes after a fantastic junior season in 2010. Baskind matched Sheeleigh’s goal total with nine and wasn’t far behind in league play with four goals and three assists. Baskind looks set for a big season and could hit double digits this year with a little luck.

The front line will also benefit from the return of Alexandra Conigliaro, who hit a purple patch of form in league play, with three of her four goals and all four of her assists coming in Ivy League action. Both Baskind and Conigliaro are also well versed at playing in the midfield and could fell in there if necessary. Providing depth is Elizabeth Weisman, who had two goals and two assists in eight starts and senior Patricia Yau, who saw five starts last season. The team will also be looking for a contribution for from freshman Erika Garcia, already a Mexican youth international and widely tipped to make the step up to the full Mexican national team in the future. Despite the loss of Sheeleigh, this unit still has plenty of punch to threaten the rest of the league with.

The additions in midfield are also worth noting. In particular, Meg Casscells-Hamby looks like a player with the potential to become a star for the Crimson. Netting Casscells-Hamby was a real coup for Leone, as the Florida Rush player is also a U.S. youth international at U17 level and was Florida’s Gatorade State Player of the Year for 2010-11. Lauren Urke is a promising recruit out of Minnesota and could also work her way into the rotation early on and add depth to the Harvard squad at the very least.

The top returnee could be sophomore Peyton Johnson, who started fifteen matches as a rookie and showed glimpses of real potential in scoring a couple of goals and adding an assist last year. Johnson might also be used in defense given the team’s backline problems a year ago. Also in contention for starting roles in midfield are junior Aisha Price, who also plays on Harvard’s water polo squad, and senior Hana Taiji who started most of the team’s matches in 2009 before settling into more of a key reserve role last year.

Harvard’s defensive follies last season were a complete mystery when you consider the talent Leone had on hand. Chief among that backline talent is senior Lindsey Kowal, a U.S. U23 international and on paper one of the best, if not the best, defender in the Ivy League. Kowal, a possible late round draft pick in the 2012 WPS Draft, couldn’t keep the defense afloat last season though as they were hit for four by Penn, three by Brown, and two by Dartmouth. They also managed to keep three clean sheets in league play though, so Leone might just need to coax some consistency out of this group.

Kowal’s fellow senior Becca Millock and Johnson also return after flashing signs of potential through the 2010 campaign. Claudia Haeussler and Taryn Kurcz also saw starting time last year, and considering this group doesn’t feature a whole lot of depth, could see many minutes this year. Added to the mix is Marie Margolius, a promising freshman who showed well for Stars of Massachusetts in ECNL play and could be a big contributor early in her college career. There may be some talented parts composing the Harvard defense this year, but Leone will have to get that group playing well as a unit if the Crimson are going to contend for a league title.

There’s also an unsettled situation in goal to deal with for Harvard this season. Junior Alexandra Millet and sophomore Jessica Wright shared time last season, but neither are assured of the starting job going into 2011 with two more keepers coming to Boston in this recruiting class. Of the pair, Park City, Utah’s Bethany Kanten looks like one to keep an eye on in what looks to be a very open race for the starting job.

Losing a player like Sheeleigh would rip the heart out of most mid-majors, but the Crimson look fairly well equipped to cope with no small share of offense in reserve from the returnees and a talented crop of newcomers. How Baskind deals with the increased attention of likely being Harvard’s go-to player in the attack will be a key as to the direction of their season. Of course, all of that offensive muscle could go for naught if the defense plays down to the level of its opposition once again this year. With a player like Kowal marshaling the rearguard, there’s simply no excuse for a performance like last season’s by the defense. In short, Harvard has as much talent as anyone in the league on paper and should be one of the teams in the Ivy League title mix if Leone gets everyone playing up to their talent level, which of course, isn’t a given.

You can’t really sugarcoat it. Last season, with the Ivy League title in their sights, COLUMBIA blew it. After starting the league campaign 3-0-1, including with wins at Penn and against Princeton, the Lions staggered to three straight league defeats to see their title hopes go down the drain. It was a not too kind reminder of the futility that has plagued Columbia for much of its long soccer history. The Lions with archetypical bottom feeders up until about a half decade ago when long serving Head Coach Kevin McCarthy finally started to haul Columbia up the table.

After a mid-table finish in 2005, Columbia at long last lifted the Ivy League title in 2006 with an undefeated conference campaign, also earning the program’s first berth to the NCAA Tournament in the process. Unfortunately, for McCarthy and the Lions, the title success proved to be a one off as the program sank back into mid-table right after. The team was on the outer fringes of the at-large bid bubble in 2008 after a third place finish in the league, but entering 2010, the Lions had come no closer to repeating their title success in 2006.

Columbia started out last season well enough with four wins in five, even if the schedule wasn’t exactly teeming with postseason contenders. The Lions also played state rivals Hofstra close before going on the road and shocking Big East St. John’s for one of the bigger wins in recent program history. As mentioned before, the Lions started out well in league play with wins against title contenders Penn and Princeton while also taking the time to dip out of conference to earn creditable draws with strong sides Lehigh and Long Island, the latter coming on the road. After an easy 2-0 win over Manhattan in their final non-conference match, the Lions set their eyes towards the last three matches of Ivy League play and a possible league title.

Of course, it didn’t work out well, as the Lions dropped consecutive matches to Dartmouth, Yale, and Harvard to end the season. Instead of a league title, Columbia were back in mid-table in fifth place. Given the lack of a truly dominant team in the league in 2010, the Lions might well feel they blew a major opportunity for more silverware with their late collapse.

McCarthy and the Lions will be doing their very best to erase the memory of that late season fade from people’s minds this upcoming campaign. The Lions made their name last season on a strong defense that ranked statistically among the best the Ivy League had to offer. Well, at least up until the final three matches of the season, where the Lions improbably conceded a pair of goals in each successive defeat. That defense will certainly be looking to make amends for the late season struggles but has some losses to overcome in the process entering the new campaign.

Gone is the team’s best defender, Lauren Cooke, a towering 5’11″ center-back that was an uncompromising rock in the back for the Lions and who was on the pitch for Columbia every single second through the 2010 season. The Lions will also be without last season’s assists leader, Kelly Hostetler, a left-back who rang up seven assists on the season, even if she was held pointless in Ivy League play.

The absence of two key defenders could mean a recall back to the defense of English youth international Liz Wicks, who has played forward, full-back, and midfielder in her three seasons with the Lions thus far. Regardless of whether Wicks gets the call back to the defense, the team can still call upon the services of sophomore Shannon FitzPatrick, who started fifteen matches as a freshman last season. Another Georgia native, Lindsay Mushett will also be in line for starting minutes as a senior after nine starts in seventeen appearances last year, with junior Isabel King also in contention after nine starts in 2010.

With the upheaval on the backline, Columbia may find itself leaning on its solid goalkeeper, Lillian Klein. Klein’s been a two year starter for the Lions and has quietly rounded into a netminder of some repute for McCarthy’s team. With the defense in front of her potentially not as strong as it was last season, she’ll need to be on top of her game for Columbia to have any chance at a title challenge. The backups are a pair of true freshmen who have a lot of size but obviously no college experience.

The shifts in defense might also necessitate the Lions’ offense to do more of the heavy lifting in 2011. Once again, the team figures to lean a whole lot on senior forward Ashlin Yahr, the team’s scoring workhorse for the past three seasons. While she’s seen her goals total decline in each season after hitting double digits with ten in 2008 to go with seven assists as a rookie, Yahr was still good for seven goals last year and four in Ivy matches.

Nobody else on the team tallied more than two goals, meaning Columbia could be in big trouble if Yahr isn’t delivering the goods. Marissa Schultz and Coleen Rizzo both had a pair of goals and will contend to be the team’s second option behind Yahr. The Lions might have the right solution to being so one-dimensional on offense though with newcomer Alexa Yow. An Irish youth international who has impressed in ECNL action with club side CFC United, Yow could be able to come in and relieve some of the pressure facing Yahr as the team’s only proven scoring option. Yow’s already overcome a serious knee injury to impress in WPSL action this Summer and could be a much needed boost for the club in attack this year.

In midfield, the Lions will look for more from versatile sophomore Chelsea Ryan after an impressive freshman campaign that saw her net two goals and four assists as she started every match last year as a rookie for the Lions. Also worth watching in midfield for the Lions is senior Nora Dooley who scored both goals in Columbia’s 2-0 win over Princeton last year. Dooley is still trying to reach the heights of 2008 where she scored six goals but still has plenty of experience and leadership to give to the team even if she isn’t scoring. Beverly Leon was also impressive as a freshman with two goals and four assists in thirteen starts. Wicks could also feature here if she doesn’t get moved into defense and has some offensive punch as her four goals scored as a forward in 2008 show.

Columbia’s 2011 squad appears to have a handful of solid contributers but aren’t overwhelming in star power or depth. In other words, they look like a mid-table team. Probably not the news Lions supporters want to hear after last season’s late slide away from the top of the table, but McCarthy’s team just seem to have too much to replace on defense and lack proven performers up front other than Yahr. If some of the newcomers gel quickly, and the Lions get a couple of breakout seasons from returnees, they might stand and outside chance at a title run, but more than likely it’ll be middle of the pack once again for the team in blue and white.

A program that began to show brief flickers of turning into something special in the Ivy League during Andy Nelson’s one year at the helm of PENN has finally started to blossom into a consistent league contender under current Head Coach Darren Ambrose, now at the helm of the Quakers for over a decade. Penn may have netted their first NCAA Tournament appearance the season before he got there, but Ambrose has been the one that has brought home three Ivy League titles and the subsequent berths to the Big Dance that go along with them. It had been a few years between titles though as the Quakers finished 2008 in fifth place and 2009 in third after the title triumph of 2007.

But with the general track of the program pointing upward heading into 2010, another run at the Ivy League title looked to be in the cards at the start of last season. The regular season started out with mixed fortunes for Ambrose’s side. The Quakers managed to beat Big Five rivals Villanova and Saint Joseph’s, both at home, to emerge from the first couple of weeks of the season with a big feather in their cap. Those consecutive victories helped wash away a little of the sting of defeat to minnows Towson in the season opener in the beginning of September. A road trip to California brought further success as the Quakers downed Big West contenders Cal State Northridge while also giving Loyola Marymount a good game before falling, 1-0.

Back at home and into Ivy League play, Penn scored a big win over title rivals Harvard but would drop contests out of league play to Navy and Army as they split their schedule between early conference play and non-conference forays. Penn’s title challenge was then slightly dented by a loss to Columbia and a draw at Dartmouth, meaning the Quakers’ margin for error at the top was preciously balanced. Penn then lodged huge wins over Yale and Brown (and added a non-league win over a good Lehigh team to boot) to go into their final match of the regular season knowing that a draw would be good enough to win the league title.

That they did, playing out a scoreless stalemate against the Tigers, who could have won the title with a win at home on the last day. Penn’s reward for their third league title was a date with mercurial state rivals Penn State in the NCAA Tournament. The Quakers gave a great go of it, hardly overmatched by their more illustrious opponents, but ultimately fell to a second half goal against the Nitany Lions.

As you might expect from a team that won a league title, Penn were strong at both ends of the pitch last season, with the league’s second best offense and a defense that was tied for the league’s best. Both areas take a big hit this season through graduation, and Penn will be scrambling to fill the sizable voids left by All-Ivy First Teamers Sarah Friedman and Kaitlin Campbell. Midfielder Friedman was a unanimous selection to the All-Ivy First Team and rebounded well in 2010 from a somewhat off song junior year. Friedman couldn’t quite hit her amazing 2008 heights of fifteen assists, but did manage eight helpers, enough to give her thirty for her career and carve out a place at the top of the program’s all-time assists chart.

Also gone from the offense are midfielder Marisa Schoen and forward Kristin Kaiser, although neither tallied a point last year despite starting duties. Plenty of talent does return offensively for Penn, including last seasons Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Kerry Scalora. Scalora tied for the team lead in goals and points in her freshman season, making her an immediate factor in the Quakers’ offense. Scalora did tail off a little in league play with only a goal and an assist but should show improvement in her sophomore season and be a key player for Ambrose for years to come.

Also back will be senior forward Marin McDermott, who tied Scalora for the team lead in points with twelve and tied for the team lead in league goals with three. McDermott has fourteen goals in three seasons and looks a rather safe option for the Quakers for some scoring up front. Additionally, five goal senior Ursula Lopez-Palm is back for one final season and was the team’s most clutch player with three match winning goals last season to pace the team. Super sub Laura Oliver also returns after tying for second on the team with three assists. The Quakers also add freshman forward Callan Parra to the mix from the powerful So Cal Blues club team. Though the loss of Friedman will be felt, this offense still has the capability to give its Ivy rivals fits in 2011.

In midfield, the team returns upperclassmen starters Theresa Yankovich, who had three assists last season, and Erin Beck, who had a couple of goals despite missing a handful of matches through injury. Also back and in contention for a starting role is sophomore Christina Hart. As a rookie, Hart made thirteen appearances and scored against Villanova early in the season. Given how many great forwards the team has at their disposal, it’d be a shock if a few of those strikers weren’t tried out in the midfield as well.

Defensively, the team has to overcome the loss of team captain and all-around rock at the back Kaitlin Campbell. With the rest of the starting defense scheduled to return though, this unit probably won’t slip off dramatically. Senior Colleen Barry was a rock at the back last season, starting all eighteen matches and will again marshall this defense. Also back from last year’s starting lineup are senior Adrienne Lerner and converted forward Alex Dayneka. The backline also gets to add the team’s top recruit for 2011 in Eclipse Select defender Haley Cooper a U.S. youth international at the U15 level and a player who should be able to step right into major minutes for the Quakers. Mustang SC star Kaitlyn Moore also joins up and could contribute as either a defender or midfielder.

In goal, Penn will once again lean on Caroline Williams, the senior who was the heroine of the day against Princeton last season in the Ivy title clincher. Williams should be the undisputed #1 for Ambrose and figures to be one of the leagues top keepers again this season. The backups are Sarah Banks and Rachel Resek, but neither have seen extensive time in between the pipes as of yet.

Penn loses a couple of great players in Friedman and Campbell but have more than enough returning talent to put in another title challenge in the always tense and exciting Ivy League. If the newcomers can hold their own at this level right out of the gate, the Quakers should be among the teams vying for the Ivy League crown and a second straight trip to the Big Dance come the final weekend of the regular season.

It may seem like an eon ago at this point, but it was only a little more than half a decade ago that YALE injected some magic into the NCAA Tournament with a swashbuckling run into the Sweet Sixteen that featured a second round defeat over ACC contenders Duke. Since that glorious 2005 season though, the Bulldogs have played the role of Ivy League superball, bouncing up and down the table. Beginning with that 2005 season, Yale has followed good seasons with bad ones and vice versa.

Unfortunately for long serving boss Rudy Meredith, the lows have been pretty bad in recent seasons while the highs haven’t quite hit the heights of his only season lifting silverware with Yale. And considering the Bulldogs finished as runners-up in 2009, let’s just say that expectations weren’t exactly sky high for Yale coming into the 2010 season. Of course, Yale then came out and put Penn State deeper into its early season crisis by shocking the Nitany Lions, 1-0. The win over the perennial Big Ten powerhouse probably had some in New Haven thinking of Ivy League glory.

That glory never quite arrived. Yale couldn’t recreate that magic in their next four matches, all against eventual NCAA Tournament participants. The Bulldogs managed to hold their own in all of the contests, save the Boston College match, a 7-0 mugging by the Eagles. Two straight losses at the beginning of Ivy League play dropped Meredith’s team into a big hole early in conference action, a hole that they’d have real trouble excavating themselves from. A dominant win over Dartmouth gave Yale a brief shot at life in the Ivy League title race, but the Bulldogs promptly became Cornell’s first victim in league play in roughly two years, which put one foot in the grave for Yale.

The other foot dropped after a slim 1-0 loss to Penn on home turf. Sadly, Yale came through with two of their best results of the season with all the pressure off of them, beating Columbia and Brown to lock up sixth place in the league. Sixth certainly wasn’t what Yale fans had expected after the opening win against Penn State, and it was the Bulldogs’ lowest RPI finish in the five year cycle to boot.

If recent history holds true, then Yale are in for a title in challenge in 2011 with it being an odd numbered year. But history likely doesn’t account for the fact that the Bulldogs do lose some of the key players from last year’s side, none bigger than club legend Becky Brown. Brown crammed a whole lot of production into a 5’1″ frame as she finished her career third in points and second in assists in club history. After a thirteen goal, four assist season won Brown Ivy League Player of the Year honors in 2009, much was expected out of the player in 2010 in her senior season. Instead, Brown suffered through arguably her worst season as a collegian, with only four goals and six assists for her lowest points total in her four years in New Haven.

The team also suffers through the loss of a pair of starting midfielders in Megan Ashforth and Kate Macauley. The former missed much of Ivy League play, while the latter didn’t really take command of a starting spot until league action. Despite the losses, the offense seems to be in relatively stable hands. Kristen Forster and Mary Kubiuk, a pair of juniors, were both impressive in spurts last season with each scoring three goals in Ivy action. Forster made hers count, with two of them being match winning strikes for the Bulldogs and scored four overall for the club while adding three assists. Forster is also a capable provider, having tallied twelve assists in two years for Yale. Kubiuk has been a productive super sub thus far after two seasons but could be in line for more minutes given her strong production off the bench.

Senior captain Miyuki Hino will also be steady as ever in all likelihood after at least three goals the last three seasons for the club. Their positions as goal getters in the lineup will be under threat though from some talented teammates. Meredith has to be hoping for more from sophomore forward Jessica Schloth, who came in with a long list of accomplishments but delivered precious little production in her freshman season. She could be quickly squeezed out of minutes by freshman Melissa Gavin, who comes in this year with an equally glittering resume from the Scorpions SC club. Also in the mix is freshman Meredith Speck, who has been a glittering talent with the Albertson Fury club and has shined brightly in ECNL action in recent seasons.

Another highly touted freshman who flattered to deceive at times was midfielder Juliann Jeffrey. Much was expected from the U.S. youth international, but Jeffrey struggled to stamp down a starting spot for herself for much of the year. She’ll be hoping for better fortunes, while senior midfielder Enma Mullo figures to be the leader of a young group. Mullo returned from a 2009 injury to start seventeen matches and rack up three goals and five assists in a fine season. Newcomer Muriel Battaglia, a sizable addition to the midfield, also has a chance to feature early for the Bulldogs this year.

The defense comes through last season with relatively few losses, but one big departure is the league’s best goalkeeper in Japan youth international Ayana Sumiyasu. Sumiyasu rounded into a dependable netminder in 2010 and leaves uncertainty behind her. Adele Jackson-Gibson doubles as a member of Yale’s track team and will likely open up preseason as the team’s #1 after three starts in her first two seasons with the team. She could be pushed by incoming recruit Elise Wilcox though.

The defense is a solid, if unspectacular, group with a fair amount of experience. Torrey Leroy is the old hand of the group but is still only a junior and only became a fixture in the starting lineup last season. Anna McCahon and Shannon McSweeney were tossed right into the fire as freshmen last year and made thirty-three starts between them. The defense should also benefit from the return of Lauren Mathy after injuries limited her to a couple of appearances off the bench last season. The defense also adds talented freshmen Madi Bickel to their ranks this season and should make whoever starts in goal’s life a little easier.

Meredith has a lot of talented pieces to work with as he pursues Yale’s third Ivy League title this season. Brown was in large part the glue that held this team together though over the past few years, meaning Yale might be better on paper than in practice this season. They should do a fair shade better than last season’s sixth place, but a title challenge isn’t a given as this team is still young and needs time to gel.

It’s time for a new era at DARTMOUTH, a school that has had plenty of profitable ones in the Ivy League. Current Virginia Head Coach Steve Swanson’s six-year reign brought a pair of titles and two appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Kelly Knudsen only reached the postseason in one of her three seasons but made it a memorable appearance, reaching the Elite Eight after a fairy tale run after winning the Ivy League title.

Erica Walsh reached the Big Dance in all three of her seasons with the Big Green and added two titles and a pair of Sweet Sixteen appearances to Dartmouth’s lineage before departing. Angie Hind took the job in 2005 from current Bucknell Head Coach Ben Landis and immediately delivered with an NCAA Tournament appearance in her first season. But since then, the Big Green has slowly slipped into the role of “almost team”, falling short of silverware and really only being in the discussion for an at-large bid in 2006.

After a third place finish in 2009, there were hopes that the Big Green could finally end the long wait and either get back to the Big Dance and/or win the Ivy League title. Opening up 2-4-1 probably wasn’t part of the script, but Dartmouth did make the positive results count with a draw at San Diego preceeding a famous result as the Big Green got a little revenge on their ex-boss with a 1-0 win at Walsh’s Penn State side. It was almost enough to erase bad memories of befuddling losses to Colgate and New Hampshire.

But with only four points out of a possible twelve in the first half of Ivy play though, it looked like another trophy-less season for Dartmouth. Wins over Columbia, Harvard, and Cornell were ultimately proven too little, too late as Dartmouth finished agonizingly close to the summit of the league again, just a single point off of champions Penn. Head Coach Angie Hind decided to call time on her career with the Big Green afterward, taking a position as an assistant with the Scottish national side. Filling the void is Theresa Wagner, a playing legend with Washington and last an assistant at national powerhouse Stanford.

While Wagner’s not exactly inheriting a powerhouse, the cupboard hasn’t been left completely bare by Hind either. The new boss does have to replace four starters though, including a pair of midfielders from last season’s squad, specifically Katie Davis and Melisa Krnjaic who both played key roles in one of the league’s best midfields. The Big Green shouldn’t skip too much of a beat though as the returnees in midfield are all more than capable of picking up the slack.

Marina Moschitto tied for the team lead in points with ten as a freshman and was the team leader in match winning goals and is also a threat to play up front for the Big Green. Fellow sophomore Chrissy Lozier was the team’s leading scorer in Ivy League play with two goals and three assists despite not cracking the starting lineup until conference play started. Also back is Kim Rose, who didn’t quite put up those offensive numbers but did start all sixteen matches for Dartmouth. Additionally, the team adds talented freshman midfielder Amanda Flugstad-Clarke to their ranks for the upcoming season. Flugstad-Clarke is a member of last year’s ECNL champion PDA team and is also eligible for Norway and England. The midfield is also boosted by the addition of Kendall Kraus, a freshman who was a member of this year’s ECNL champion San Diego Surf club.

They might need the midfielders to keep scoring, because the Big Green lacked a decided cutting edge up front from their forwards, a situation that figures to only get worse in 2011 with top forward Peyton Tata, who tied for the team lead with ten points, departing. The best hope is probably to get senior Aly O’Dea back firing. O’Dea was a house afire as a sophomore with nine goals in 2009 but slumped back to three last year and only started seven matches. Also a possibility for the starting lineup is junior Libby Hamlin, who had three assists last year but no goals.

Like basically every other team in the Ivy League last year, Dartmouth’s defense was solid enough, and the good news for Wagner in her first year is that all but one starter on the backline returns, with Sarah Bromley the only departure. Junior Aurelia Solomon figures to be the Big Green’s leader on defense after a couple of stellar seasons as a starter. Solomon stepped up into a starting role well last season after being a super sub as a freshman and also scored a pair of goals in 2010. Joining her will be veteran Erin Fleischli, a three year starter looking to go out with a bang this year, and Grace Best who, like Solomon, stepped up well into a starting role last year. Dartmouth gets some more young talent on defense with the addition of promising freshman Laura Thurber.

The most exciting addition for 2011 could be in goal though. Senior Colleen Hogan has held the starting spot in between the pipes for two solid seasons but faces a heavy challenge from freshman Tatiana Saunders. Saunders comes to the Big Green with a glowing reputation that includes England youth international experience at the U19 level and won rave reviews for her performances in WPSL action for the New York Athletic Club this year. She’s still young, but Saunders could well develop into one of the nation’s top goalkeepers in due time.

Wagner looks to have a solid if unspectacular squad in place for her first season with the Big Green in 2011. A title challenge might be a bit surprising, but Dartmouth has the tools for another top half finish this year.

As the longest serving head coach in women’s college soccer today, BROWN‘s Phil Pincince has presided over thirty-three seasons of Bears soccer with twelve Ivy League titles to his name. The Bears won nine consecutive titles from 1982-1990. From 1983-1990, Brown lost once, once in league play, a conference mark that approaches what the greatest North Carolina teams accomplished. Brown and Pincince finished the 1984 season #2 in America with a 13-1-1 record. There’s no question that when Pincince finally steps away from the game, we’ll all be that much poorer for losing a legend of the collegiate game.

Nobody’s talking about that at the moment though, and Pincince has been focused on trying to drive Brown back up the table after a slide back down towards the also rans within the Ivy League. Much of the past half decade has been spent yo-yo-ing up and down the RPI while struggling to mount any sort of a title challenge. The Bears entered the 2010 season on the back of finishes of seventh, fourth, and sixth in the Ivy League over the past three seasons and had much to prove after a 5-9-1 struggle in 2009.

The Bears lost two of their first three but then rebounded to reel off a four match unbeaten run that featured a great win on the road against Army who finished the season ranked in the RPI Top 100. Things soured a bit though once league play began as the Bears went winless in their first three matches, putting them into an immediate hole.

A great win over Harvard at home had to have boosted Brown’s confidence and given them the slightest sliver of hope in resurrecting their season in the final few weeks, but then the Bears struggled to a scoreless draw against traditional cellar dwellers Cornell, snuffing out those hopes rather quickly. Brown fought bravely against Penn and Yale to close out the season but were one goal losers each time. The RPI may have shown a dramatic improvement, but the Ivy League table told another story as Brown endured another seventh place finish and were only one place off from finishing rock bottom.

The notion that someone as respected and long serving as Pincince would be under pressure entering 2011 is quite foolish, but you’d have to say that things haven’t really gone that well for Brown in recent years and that the Brown coaching staff will have to dig deeper than every to get the Bears out of the rut they’re in right now. Fortunately for Pincince, he’ll be able to call upon quite an experienced squad in 2011 as the Bears return all but two starters from last year’s squad.

Considering the Bears’ defense was formidable enough last season, that’s a very good thing indeed. The leader on defense also happens to be one of the Ivy League’s best defenders in senior Hawaiian Allison Kagawa. Kagawa’s turned into a constant presence at the back for the Bears in her first three seasons and blossomed into a tremendous defender last season. After serving as a dependable reserve and spot starter in her first three seasons, Gloria Chun also rounded into a strong defender for the Bears and should combine with Kagawa to help form one of the league’s best defensive units if she doesn’t get pushed up into midfield, with fellow versatile Bear Rachael Pack also able to shift between midfield and defense. Another returning starter is senior Carly Ruiz, who was a seldom used reserve for two years before turning into a lineup constant last year. Top reserves Alison Mullin and Diana Ohrt will also be in contention for major minutes.

Sophomore keepers Amber Bledsoe and M.C. Barrett split time almost right down the middle last season for the Bears with Bledsoe starting matches and Barrett finishing them in goal. While the time share was a bit unusual when compared with other teams, it does mean that Brown has a pair of keepers with a nice chunk of experience going into 2011 which could pay off in case one is injured or ineffective.

If the defense is among the strongest in the league, then the offense could be one of the weakest in the Ivy League. The team could only scrape together six goals in seven league matches, a paltry total and one that won’t have Brown pushing for honors no matter how strong the defense is. Making matters worse is the graduation of leading scorer and First Team All-Ivy midfielder Gina Walker who had five goals and four assists last season. Where goals are going to come from this season is anybody’s guess. In midfield, Mika Siegelman is the leading returning goalscorer but fired blanks, like most of her teammates in Ivy action. She’s still just a sophomore though and has plenty of room to grow.

Ohrt was the only player with multiple goals in conference play but is not a natural goalscorer. Youngster Maddie Wiener was an option off the bench and tied for the team lead in winning goals with two and could see an expanded role this season after three goals and three assists as a freshman. Another contender for a starting spot is Canadian senior Sarah Hebert-Seropian who started twelve matches and likely would have started all of Brown’s matches had she not been sidelined with injury.

Up front, Louisa Pitney also tied for the team lead for match winning goals but was mainly an option off the bench in 2010. Senior Marybeth Lesbirel hit for four goals as a freshman in 2008 but has only scored a single goal in each of the two seasons after. She has plenty of starting experience though and should be a favorite to start again in 2011. Eliza Marshall also was a starter last year but has only scored two goals in two seasons thus far. Kiersten Berg came off the bench to score two goals against Monmouth last season but didn’t score again all season.

Somebody has to step up for Brown to supply the offense, because if last season’s anemic output is repeated, it’s likely another disappointing season in the Ivy League. But Pincince might have his best squad in a while thanks to a defense that few Ivy squads will probably relish seeing. They won’t open the season amongst the hot favorites in the conference, but that defense should keep them in the mix in most matches. If an attacker or two has a breakout season, who knows?

CORNELL have been traveling a long, lonely road for a while now as the Ivy League’s cellar dwellers. Randy May’s run as head coach may not have been perfect, especially near the end in the nineties, but he did manage to deliver a couple of shared league titles and nine winning seasons. Since then, it’s been a living nightmare for the Big Red. Berhane Andeberhan lasted six seasons at the beginning of the decade and never managed a finish above sixth in the Ivy League before being forced to resign. Unfathomably, it’s gotten worse since then. Gretchen Zigante lasted a season and went 3-13-1 en route to another last place finish.

In stepped Danielle LaRoche, but it’s managed to get even worse. Cornell had managed to win at least one game in the league every year since their first year of play, but heading into last year, the Big Red had an Ivy League record of 1-20-0 in LaRoche’s first three years. 2009′s season was a calamitous disaster even by Cornell standards, the Big Red going 1-13-1, although they did manage to top a Colgate squad that went 11-7-1.

Mercifully, Cornell did seem to take the first steps towards respectability last year. The non-conference slate was an unqualified success, with the Big Red going 5-3-0. While many of those wins were against rather tame opposition, there was nothing tame about the win over Yale on October 16, the 1-0 triumph the schools first win in league play since 2008. A subsequent draw with Brown gave the program outside hope of climbing off the bottom for the first time since 2004.

But two losses to end the year meant another year with the wooden spoon for the Big Red. If you want to talk moral victories, the team scored it’s most points in conference play under LaRoche and was only one point off of seventh placed Brown. It wasn’t a great season by any means, but it was upward progress at the very least.

So now how about getting off the bottom of the league? On paper at least, the Big Red would seem to have a fighting chance. LaRoche’s 2010 squad was perilously young with just two seniors on the roster. The only loss of a starter on the team is midfielder Katie Hayes, and the team will still likely be very young with possibly only six seniors on the 2011 roster. The Big Red’s defense was adequate for the Ivy League, and LaRoche will be happy to have two of the key cogs back for 2011. Senior Sidra Bonner is an imposing center-back whose size (5’11″) makes her stand out in the Ivies. Bonner couldn’t quite match her three goals of a season prior in 2009 but still remains a threat on the offensive end due to ability in the air on set pieces.

Also returning are junior Jayann Gabrio, who started all fifteen matches last season, and full-back Abageal Vonderweidt, who can also fill in capably on the right wing if need be. Add in talented center-back recruit Sydney Cetrullo, and Cornell might actually have one of the better defenses in the league.

Also back should be Megan Bartlett, a senior, who beat back the challenge of classmate Kelly Murphy to take hold of the goalkeeping job during conference play. She impressed in her stint in goal and should have a leg up for the starting spot going into 2011.

Then again, keeping goals out wasn’t the problem last year, scoring them was. A paltry return of only two goals in Ivy League action scuttled any chances of a climb up the table, and finding some more offense will likely be the challenge for LaRoche this year. The scorer of those goals, Maneesha Chitanvis, returns for her junior year and will be looking to build on a season which saw her finish as Cornell’s top scorer with five goals and two assists. Senior Brook Chang was the only other goal threat all season with four to her name, but she went ice cold in league play, failing to register a point. Also back and adding depth is sophomore Caedran Harvey who had a couple of goals in seven starts last year.

The Big Red also returns a good deal of experience in the midfield this season. Sophomore Rachel Nichols showed some great potential as a rookie playmaker, sharing the team lead in assists with four in thirteen starts. Also returning from last year’s starting lineup is senior Abigail Apistolas, who had three assists and started every match last season, and the team’s enforcer in midfield, Hannah Labadie, who also started every match last season. There’s also a fair amount of midfield depth on the bench as well. Xandra Hompe tied for the team lead in assists with four despite just starting three games, while Megan Crowell had a couple of goals and could also feature up front for Cornell. LaRoche obviously needs more from both of the team’s key forwards or for someone else to step up in a big way if Cornell are to progress up the table.

2010 gave LaRoche and long suffering Big Red fans some much needed hope as they were able to reel in some non-conference wins and at the very least, compete in the Ivy League. A title change is still some ways away, but for the first time in an age, Cornell may not be propping up the Ivy League come the end of the season.

Predicted Order of Finish

* = Projected NCAA Tournament Automatic Bid Winner

*1. Harvard
2. Penn
3. Princeton
4. Yale
5. Columbia
6. Dartmouth
7. Brown
8. Cornell

Non-Conference Strength of Schedule Ranking (From Most to Least Difficult)

1. Dartmouth
2. Harvard
3. Columbia
4. Princeton
5. Yale
6. Cornell
7. Penn
8. Brown

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