A-GAME: Princeton University women’s soccer players Mimi Asom, left, and Haley Chow celebrate after a goal in a 6-0 win against Howard in late August. Last Sunday, freshman forward Asom scored a golden goal in overtime to give Princeton a 2-1 win over 23rd-ranked William and Mary. She was later named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for her heroics. The Tigers, now 5-3, start Ivy play by hosting Yale on September 26. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

For Mimi Asom, making the jump to college soccer has kept her on the move.

“I have never really been a player before this who just goes and goes; I have always been more of a pick my moment player,” said Asom, a freshman forward on the Princeton University women’s soccer team.

“In this kind of scenario, you just have to keep going. You can’t pick your moments, you have to make your moments.”

The Dallas, Texas native enjoyed some special moments over the last week for Princeton. On Wednesday, Asom scored a goal and drew a red card which resulted in a Tyler Lussi tally as the Tigers defeated LaSalle 4-1. Last Sunday, Asom scored a golden goal in overtime to give Princeton a 2-1 win over 23rd-ranked William and Mary.

In reflecting on the victory over LaSalle, Asom said that Princeton’s 3-1 win over Villanova on September 13, which snapped a three-game losing streak, set the tone for the week.

“We played really well; we connected the ball well,” said Asom.

“We played some really good soccer. It definitely got us back where we needed to be and we are stronger going forward.”

Against LaSalle, Asom spent much of the night going forward, making run after run through the Explorer defense.

“As the game got further in and they were down, they became a little more reckless on their defending,” said Asom.

“They were throwing people up, trying to get people to goal and that left space in behind.”

On her goal, Asom shrewdly got into space in the box, taking a long pass from Emily Sura and banging it past the LaSalle goalie.

“They were playing an offsides trap so I waited a little bit and then ran back in front so I wasn’t offside,” said Asom.

“A lot of them were saying she is offsides but I purposely waited and then came back up and in front of them.”

Asom is enjoying playing alongside junior star Lussi at the top of the Princeton offense.

“We have been working this season to get the two of us to know each other and play off each other,” said Asom, who was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for her heroics against LaSalle and W&M while running mate Lussi was chosen as the Ivy Player of the Week.

“She is a phenomenal player because you know she is never going to stop going and she will give 100 percent for every ball. She is great on the ball, she is great in the air. She just has so many weapons so it is so much fun to play with her. We play kind of different soccer so I think we complement each other pretty well.”

Princeton head coach Sean Driscoll knows he has something special in the Asom/Lussi combination.

“Mimi is very hard to deal with; she is very strong and she is very good with her back to the goal,” said Driscoll of Asom, who has four goals this season, second best on the team to the six scored by Lussi.

“She has tremendous feet and she is deceptively fast. People don’t realize how fast she is and she has a nose for the goal. Tyler is a slashing player, a very good one-on-one player facing the goal, she can play back to goal as well. Mimi is a very good back to goal player so they are very complementary of each other. if we can get the two of them on the same page, we are going to be very difficult for teams to handle because we have two bona fide goal scorers.”

The Tigers got a tremendous all-around offensive effort in the win over LaSalle as Lussi scored two goals and Vanessa Gregoire chipped in one with Jesse McDonough getting two assists and the trio of Sura, Katie Pratt-Thompson, and Natalie Larkin getting one helper each.

“We found a way to score a number of goals and we could have actually have scored a few more,” said Driscoll. “There were a number of good goals, number of good assists.”

With Princeton, now 5-3, starting its Ivy League campaign by hosting Yale on September 26, Driscoll believes his team is in a good place.

“We are definitely headed in the right direction,” said Driscoll. “We had two very good games and didn’t get the right result, now we have had two games with the right result. We are still learning a lot about ourselves.”

Asom, for her part, is definitely ready to come up big for Princeton in the Ivy race.

“This is just where I wanted to be,” said Asom. “It is where I wanted to go to college, it is where I wanted to play soccer. This is where I saw myself building my future. I am excited to get into the league and win this thing.”