ON THE MARK: Princeton University women’s soccer player Ryann Brown, left, marks a foe in recent action. Last Saturday, senior defender Brown helped Princeton blank Columbia 1-0 to clinch the outright Ivy League regular season title and the right to host the Ivy postseason tournament this weekend. The top-seeded Tigers, now 12-4 overall and 6-1 Ivy, will host fourth-seeded Harvard in an Ivy semifinal contest on November 8 with the victor advancing to the final on November 10. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Justin Feil

Ryann Brown may have felt a little knee pain before the Princeton University women’s soccer team played at Columbia last Saturday.

That pain was forgotten in Princeton’s 1-0 win over the Lions that clinched the outright Ivy League regular season title for the Tigers and right to host the Ivy postseason tournament this weekend.

“There isn’t really a better way to end this chapter of my life,” said Brown, a senior defender from Laguna Niguel, Calif. “It feels like everything I did in the past, everything led up to this moment. I feel like there is a happy ending at the end of all of this.”

Brown is part of a defense that pitched its eighth shutout of the season to make junior Pietra Tordin’s 64th-minute goal all they would need to hand Columbia their first Ivy loss. Senior Tyler McCamey was stellar in goal behind the stout defense as Princeton improved to 12-4 overall, 6-1 in Ivy play. The Tigers are the top seed for the Ivy tournament and will host fourth-seeded Harvard this Friday at Roberts Stadium in a semifinal costs with the victor advancing to the final on Sunday. The winner of the event earns the league’s automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA tournament.

“What I was most proud of was the fortitude,” said Princeton head coach Sean Driscoll. “On the road in a game you had to win. They were allowed to draw. They would have won the league if they had drawn. So we had to find a way to win on the road, away from home, in a place that we’ve only won once before. So it was a difficult task and I just give the kids a lot of credit for fighting valiantly until the very end.”

Brown has done that individually as well. She has bounced back from a knee issue that kept her out of action all last year.

“I was there,” said Brown. “I went to every practice, every game. I was on the team still. I just was on the sideline doing physical therapy, cheering my team on and I think that was a huge development year for me. I learned so much about how much it means to be on the field and how much I can give also not on the field. I think there are two very distinct goals that I think each one is just as important as the other.”

It was a big change from the 2022 season in which she was named second-team All-Ivy. Brown could not help the defense in the same way in 2023.

“It was really hard,” said Brown. “There were moments where I told my athletic trainer, ‘I haven’t been practicing, but can I go on the field right now and play?’ When we were playing Rutgers, I asked my trainer if I could play in the game, not having played a minute prior, not having practiced at all. There were moments where I’m urging to play, I want to play for them. There’s not much you can do in those moments.”

Brown had gone through platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy but it hadn’t done enough. She went through PRP again before this fall and felt it helped more, though the pain was still there, along with some doubts. But her pain management is better and she’s motivated to finish her Princeton career on her terms.

“It feels a tad inhibiting,” said Brown. “It just feels like I’m not myself, it feels like there’s moments with things I can’t do that I know I used to be able to do, but I can’t do anymore sometimes. Or it feels like maybe my knee is going to give out in a moment during the game. But I think the adrenaline takes over and usually once the game actually starts I don’t really feel as much pain anymore. That’s what happened today. I mean, I take medicine before for the pain. There is a psychological factor of me being like ‘my knees hurting, I don’t know how I’m going to play,’ but I think once the game actually starts, usually those feelings of apprehension go away.”

Brown didn’t get as much preparation time as others. The program had to manage her efforts and time on the practice pitch, but she’s been a part of a special defense that features sophomore Zoe Markesini, senior Heather MacNab, senior Kate Toomey, senior Kiley Hamou, and junior Kelsee Wozniak. It’s not a secret what has made them so good.

“Our back line’s playing the best it has for all of them in their respective careers, and Tyler anchors us in goal and Toomey in the six winning balls all the time and being very difficult to deal with and then you have Ryann and Zoe who have been a tremendous partnership and obviously Kylie and Heather and also Kelsee too are giving us a lot too,” said Driscoll. “They’ve just played so well, and they just they get along well, they work well off each other.”

The defense is ranked 11th nationally in goals allowed average at 0.56, tops in the Ivies. Only one team, Yale, has managed to score more than one goal in a game on the Tigers. Brown said the chemistry is great in the back and that the players are using each other’s strengths to make the defense one of the best in the country.

“I think our communications, our work ethic, all of us are probably incredible one-on-one defenders and we have speed and not to mention if you get behind our four players in the backline, our goalie is probably one of the top goalkeepers in the country,” said Brown. “I just think it’s hard to score on us. There’s so much a team has to get through. We’re great in the air. All of us are really good ball winners. We go up on corners and we also defend on corners.”

Adding to their shutout total Saturday was just business, nothing more, to Brown. It was a chippy game and possession was difficult for both teams. The difference was the Tigers kept Columbia off the scoreboard.

“We’ve had a good amount of shutouts, so there’s not usually a pride in it,” said Brown. “It’s more like we got the job done. There’s not really a celebration. It’s more like, we did what we were supposed to do. I think that’s just the life as a defender. There’s not much glory and we kind of are all humble and we know that that’s our job and we just do it.”

In a game that wasn’t pretty all the time, the Tigers showed their grit to persevere. They had to battle start to finish to knock off the Lions, who were previously unbeaten in the Ivies.

“Championship games usually aren’t the prettiest because those teams are willing to put everything on the line to win, and that was one of those games,” said Brown. “And I think our mindset kept us in this game. Our desire to win — we haven’t won an Ivy League title since 2018 — so we all wanted it really badly, and if we were this close, we were going to do whatever we possibly could.”

The defense will have to remain stingy this weekend. Columbia and Brown open the Ivy tournament in the first semifinal on Friday. The final is slated for 1 p.m. Sunday at Roberts Stadium.

“We’re going to have to continue to defend like we always have, like we did today and have all season,” said Driscoll. “That’s going to be No. 1. That’s our platform for everything, but we need to do a much better job of asserting ourselves and playing our style. I think that the team that does that is going to win this tournament.”

Playing well at Columbia gave Princeton the right to host the tournament. The Tigers face the tough task of beating the remaining top contenders for the Ivy title for a second time this season, and they are protecting against being overconfident.

“We’re home and we are pretty good at home,” said Brown. “So I think the mindset is just to be us. I think our identity that we present right now is that we like to value the ball, we score off counters, we’re good in the air off corner kicks. So it’s just playing to what we’re good at, and usually we’re better at doing that at home. Every team we’re about to play, I believe we have beaten them before so it’s carrying what we learned from playing them the first time and carrying that over to the games coming up.”

Brown is thrilled to have the chance to be back on the field to help bolster the Tiger defense and help it produce a big postseason run.

“It’s a great feeling to play again,” said Brown. “It was hard last year. Every day I’m grateful that I can play. And whenever there are players that are hurt on my team I empathize so much because I know how it feels wanting to be on that field. I do it for myself, but I also do it for the other players that can’t play right now that are hurt. I do relish every moment I am on the field.”