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ITHACA, N.Y. — The No. 25-ranked Cornell men’s soccer team plays its penultimate home match of the 2022 regular season at Berman Field against Dartmouth on Saturday afternoon.

Game Information

SITE: Berman Field – Ithaca, N.Y. (natural surface)
TIME: Saturday, Oct. 29 – 4 p.m.
RECORDS: Dartmouth (5-5-3, 2-2-0 Ivy), Cornell (11-3-0, 3-1-0 Ivy)
SERIES RECORD: Dartmouth leads, 39-29-3
BROADCAST: ESPN+
STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Last Time Out

• Senior midfielder Brandon Morales and junior defender Kisa Kiingi both factored in all three Cornell goals in the Big Red’s 3-1 victory over the Ivy League preseason favorite Princeton and Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in Princeton, N.J., last Saturday.
 
• Morales had his goal bookended by Kiingi’s pair of goals, aiding the Big Red to its Division I-leading eighth road victory in 2022 and giving Cornell its third Ivy League win of the season.
 
• Freshman goalkeeper Ryan Friedberg made four saves in the victory for Cornell, increasing his already-established freshman wins record to 11.

What’s at Stake

• With a win Saturday, the No. 25-ranked Cornell men’s soccer team will have won its 12th game of the 2022 season. It would mark the most wins by a Big Red squad since 2012 when Cornell posted a 15-2 mark, which included an Ivy League-best 6-1 mark in league play.
 
• Should Cornell reach the 12-win mark with a win on Saturday over the Big Red’s Ivy League rival Dartmouth, the 12 wins would be tied for the fourth-most in program history. The 1975 (12-4-0), 1977 (12-3-1), and 1996 (12-4-2) teams were the others to conclude their seasons with 12 wins.
 
• The Big Red is one of eight programs this season with at least 11 wins this season. Cornell joins Syracuse, Vermont, Wake Forest, and Washington (12 wins), along with Lipscomb, New Hampshire, and Western Michigan (11 wins).

Points Galore!

• Senior midfielder Brandon Morales has an Ivy League-leading 21 points (seven goals, seven assists) and is one of three Ivy League players with 20-plus points, joining Penn’s Ben Stitz and Stas Korzeniowski.
 
• So far this year, Morales has an Ivy League-leading five multi-point games, including a trio of multi-assist games. On the year, Morales has two multi-goal games and three multi-assist games.
 
• Defenders Kisa Kiingi and Connor Drought also rank in the top 10 in total points this season, as Kiingi is tied for fifth with 14 points (five goals, four assists) and Drought is tied for eighth with 13 points (three goals, seven assists).
 
• Cornell and Penn are the only two Ivy League teams with three players ranking in the top 10. Harvard is the only other program with multiple players in the top 10.
 
• Morales’ average of 1.50 points per contest ranks third in the Ivy League, trailing Stitz and Korzeniowski’s Ivy League-leading 1.54 average.
 
• In addition to ranking third in points-per-game, Morales is tied with Drought for the second-most assists in the Ivy League. Harvard’s Willem Ebbinge is the only player with more assists (8).
 
• The seven assists for Morales and Drought are tied for the seventh-most in a season. They join Richard Stimpson (2000), Ian Pilarski (2001), Daniel Haber (2012), Tyler Bagley and Emeka Eneli (2021).

National Attention

• Senior midfielder Brandon Morales garnered national attention this week as he earned a pair of national Player of the Week awards.
 
• Morales opened the week with being named College Soccer News’ National Men’s Player of the Week before receiving Top Drawer Soccer’s National Player of the Week accolades on Tuesday morning.
 
• In the Big Red’s pair of 3-1 victories last week over Binghamton and Princeton, Morales factored in five of Cornell’s six goals (one goal, four assists).
 
• This year, Morales has 21 points (seven goals and seven assists), which is the seventh time a Cornell player has recorded at least seven goals and seven assists in a season. He joins Chris Agoliatti (1972), Rob Elliott (1995), Adam Skumawitz (2000), Daniel Haber (2012), Emeka Eneli and Tyler Bagley (2021).

Balanced Scoring Attack

• Cornell enters Saturday afternoon’s match with 97 points as a team, ranking as the most by an Ivy League program and the 20th-most by a Division I team.
 
• Senior midfielder Brandon Morales, junior defender Kisa Kiingi, senior defender Connor Drought, fifth-year forward Emeka Eneli, and sophomore forward Alioune Ka all have at least 10 points this season, marking the first time in Cornell history there has been five players with 10-plus points in a season.
 
• Through games played on Oct. 25, Cornell was just one of eight programs nationally to have at least five players with a double-digit point total. Charlotte has the most with seven such players, while Lipscomb is right behind with six. Portland, Western Michigan, Campbell, Missouri State, and Maryland are tied with Cornell with five.

Double-Digit Wins

• Freshman goalkeeper Ryan Friedberg has been the Big Red’s go-to keeper this year, having started all 14 games this season. Friedberg has logged all but 11:25 of the Big Red’s minutes this season, while posting a 11-3-0 record with a 1.01 goals-against average and a .689 save percentage.
 
• Friedberg is the sixth goalkeeper since 1979 when goalkeeper wins were recorded, to register 11-plus wins in a season.
 
• Following Saturday’s win at Princeton, Friedberg joins Quinn O’Sullivan (14 wins in 1995), Hemant Sharma (11 in 1996), Rick Pflasterer (15 in 2012), Ryan Shellow (11 in 2018), and senior Brady McSwain (11 in 2021).

Berman Field Advantage

• Since 2019, the Big Red is unbeaten in 18 of its last 20 matches at Berman Field, posting a 15-2-3 record and a .825 win percentage, ranking 11th nationally.
 
• Cornell is one of 15 programs with at least a .800 home win percentage over the last four-plus years.
 
• The Big Red have just five home matches (two losses, three draws) since 2019 to not result in a win. That total matches Missouri State for the fewest at the Division I level.
 
• Cornell’s two home losses since 2019 are tied for the fewest by a Division I program with Georgetown (38-2-5) and New Hampshire (29-2-4).
 
• The two losses by the Big Red at home since 2019 have both come this season. Vermont snapped Cornell’s 15-game unbeaten streak at Berman Field on Sept. 13. Penn handed the Big Red its second home loss of the season in the team’s last home match on Oct. 15.

Having an Eye for the Goal

• The Big Red has scored 32 goals so far this year, marking the program’s sixth time since 1971 that Cornell has logged at least 32 goals over its first 14 matches. It is the second consecutive year and just the fourth time in the last 27 seasons of competition Cornell has at least 32 goals over the first 14 matches.
 
• Dating back to 2019, Cornell has scored in 45 of its last 48 matches and in 79 of the 98 games (80.6 percent) played during John Smith‘s tenure as head coach at Cornell. The 80.4 percent figure ranks as the fourth-highest total by a Cornell head coach. It is the highest since Dan Wood (1971-75), the coach in which Smith’s position is currently endowed for.

Scouting the Big Green

• Dartmouth enters Saturday afternoon’s match with a 5-5-3 overall record and a 2-2-0 mark in Ivy League play. The Big Green have won three of its last four matches with the lone setback coming to then-No. 10 Vermont in Burlington, Vt., 3-0, on Oct. 18.
 
• In its last match against Columbia at Burnham Field last Saturday, Eric Sachleben scored his first goal of the season in the 35th minute to propel the Big Green to a 1-0 win over the Lions. Dartmouth goalkeeper Costi Christodoulou made four saves to secure his fourth clean sheet of the season.
 
• David Alino has a Dartmouth-leading six goals and 12 points on the season. Alex van Schalkwyk is the only other Big Green player to net multiple goals on the season with a pair of tallies.
 
• Christodoulou has started 12 of the Big Green’s 13 games this season, posting a 5-4-2 record with a 1.19 goals-against average and a .797 save percentage.

Series vs. Dartmouth

• Cornell enters Saturday’s match on a two-game win streak over Dartmouth, who leads the all-time series by a 39-29-3 margin.
 
• Saturday will be the first time Dartmouth is playing at Berman Field since Nov. 3, 2018.