Men's soccer loses more than a game: Nugent, White hurt in Pirate romp

Mike Nugent lay on the ground, rocking back and forth as he clutched at his knee and then his head.

Jason White crashed to the ground, lying still as stunned Tigers stared.

During a three minute span late in the first half, the men's soccer team's leading scorer and sophomore goalkeeper were seriously injured.

The Tigers (6-4-0 overall, 0-2-0) Ivy League) would lose the game, 4-0. But they may also have lost any chance at a meaningful season.

With nine minutes left in the first half against Seton Hall (7-6-0 , 3-4-0 Big East), Nugent tripped over the foot of Seton Hall's Alim Ibragimov. The members of the men's soccer team stood scattered on the field, awkwardly watching the crumpled figure of their scoring star.

It was 0-0 in a crucial game that could help determine postseason chances when the junior forward Nugent limped off the field, his face tight with pain. Three minutes later, a Seton Hall player missed the ball and cracked his foot against White's head.

A shaken White stood up after several minutes and continued playing, but he gave up an easy goal with two minutes, 11 seconds left in the half.

He and Nugent would not return for the second half and their status is unknown for the rest of the season. White was replaced by senior Mike Cohen.

With its two best players off the field for the first time all season, a distracted Princeton team fell to the Pirates. It was a devastating loss for the Tigers creating a must-win situation at Brown. But such a win is highly improbable without Nugent or White.

"With Brown coming up we're going to be needing everybody," sophomore defender Bob Nye said. "Obviously losing Jay and Mike is a huge detriment to the team. You could see it. Hopefully it is just a couple of days."

Said coach Jim Barlow '91: "We didn't deal well with the injuries. We were at a point 25 minutes in when we felt things were going our way. When you have injuries like that — as a group we needed to come together and make sure that we don't give a goal away before halftime. I think it was something that affected the guys. It shouldn't have, but it did."

Nugent leads the team in goals with seven, best in the Ivy League. His 48 shots on goal entering the game were twice as many as anyone else's on the team. White ranked second overall among Ivy goalkeepers with an .827 save percentage and a 1.00 goals against average.

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White's stellar statistics made first Pirate goal even more jarring. With 2:11 remaining in the half, Torsten Knor twisted past the Tiger defense on a corner kick and slashed at the ball with his head. White staggered to the side but could not recover in time as the ball slipped past his fingers. It was a ball he usually deflects, and White stood in the goal bent over, his hands resting heavily on his knees.

"I think the first goal was a killer for us," junior forward Lucas Moskowitz said. "Then to have them score another goal and then get one taken back takes the wind out of your sails a little."

Moskowitz was referring to the Tigers' last chance to scrap back into the game. With 31:14 left in the game, trailing 2-0, Moskowitz gathered in a pass from Matt Douglas and drilled a shot into the corner of the goal. But the referees called him offsides and disallowed the goal.

One minute later, Gregory Strohmann — the Pirates' point leader — slipped through the Tiger defense and headed the ball past the lunge of Cohen.

It was 3-0, Pirates, and Princeton could not recover.

"If you're going to win games and win championships, you need to find a way to get by those times when those guys aren't on the field," Moskowitz said. "And we didn't do that today."