Kayla Wong picked a great time for her first career two-goal game and first two goals of the season, helping boost the Princeton women’s soccer team into the Ivy League Tournament final with a 3-0 win over Brown on Thursday night at Roberts Stadium.

The top-seeded Tigers will take on second-seeded Dartmouth in the 1 p.m. game, which will determine not only the Ivy League Tournament champion, but the team that receives the Ivy’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Both of Wong’s goals came in the first half, 10 minutes apart in the 27th and 37th minutes, before junior classmate Isabella Garces iced it with an 85th-minute goal.

Wong, who was named the team’s Academic All-Ivy League honoree on Wednesday, has played a career-high 1,266 minutes this season, surpassing her previous best of 1,209 from last year during Thursday’s game. Wong scored two goals as a rookie and three more as a sophomore, most recently on Nov. 8, 2024 in last year’s Ivy League Tournament semifinal win over Harvard.

On Sunday, Princeton will be looking for its second straight Ivy League Tournament title, which would make Princeton the first team to do that in the brief history of the event, which began in 2023. A win would also send Princeton to the NCAAs for the third year in a row, the first time Princeton would have gone three straight years since a six-year run from 1999 through 2004. Princeton has gone to the NCAAs six times in nine competitive seasons under Sean Driscoll, who took over the program ahead of the 2015 season.

Wong opened the scoring by finishing off a play up the left side and along the end line, with Caroline Kane and Drew Coomans working the ball toward the corner before Maddie Recupero and Dylan Jovanovic weaved it toward goal. Alexandra Barry had a one-touch redirect in the goal mouth, and Wong was there for the finish to open the scoring.

Ten minutes later, after Brown keeper Addison Etter attempted to clear the ball, Sarah Houston headed it back toward the Tigers’ attacking end where Wong took control of it about 25 yards on goal and drew Etter off the line. Once inside the 18, Wong threaded it past Etter and across the front of the goal for the 2-0 lead. 

It stayed there through halftime and until six minutes remained, when, off a Pia Beaulieu corner kick, Recupero had a couple shots blocked before sending it to the goal line for Garces to provide the finish and the 3-0 lead.

Brown outshot Princeton 15-14 overall but the Tigers doubled up the Bears 6-3 in shots on goal. Sydney Romano and Cecilia Cerone split time in goal, as they have been for the past month, with Romano not needing to record a save to turn in a shutout first half before Cerone made three saves to seal the clean sheet.