Reeling men's soccer looks to rebound against No. 11 American

The men's soccer team's last four games tell the whole story: 3-2, 1-0, 3-2, 1-0. Although the four games were each very different in nature, each, on its simplest level, was the same. They were all one goal games, and they all amounted to Princeton losses.

Eight games into a 19-game season, Princeton (1-5-2 overall, 0-2-0 Ivy League) reaches the midway point of its season Wednesday night against American at home.

If there were ever a time to start afresh, Wednesday would be it. Princeton is riding a four-game losing streak and has lost five out of six contests. Two of those losses were to league opponents, which places Princeton in the cellar of arguably the most competitive Ivy League in years.

Still, despite the early troubles, the team remains as confident as it was in pre-season and possibly more focused, and also cognizant of what it needs to start doing to correct its early-season mistakes.

"We're trying to remain focused on staying together as a group," head coach Jim Barlow '91 said. "There have been a lot of teams that wouldn't have been able to handle a losing streak. This team, on the other hand, shows up every day and tries to improve."

Although the Tigers are without senior keeper Jason White, a first-team All-Ivy and All-Mid-Atlantic selection last season, who went down with a hip injury on Sept. 28 in the team's 1-0 loss to Dartmouth, sophomore Erik White, Jason's brother, has filled in nicely, allowing five goals in three games.

Minus White, the team's starting core is relatively healthy and, more importantly, looking forward and not backward, while the talented rookies have infinitely more experience than they did just eight games ago.

The team's current record of 1-5-2 is in sharp contrast to last season's record of 4-2-2 at the same point in the season, just eight games in. Looking past the superficial discrepancy in records, Coach Barlow is quick to point out that the difference between 1-5-2 and 4-2-2 is just "little details."

"I think we're very close [to getting back to the place we were last season]," Barlow said. "There are some things that we are doing better. We possess the ball better than last year's team, and we're creating opportunities outside better than we did. What we're struggling with now is ways to finish off plays on both sides of the field."

Yet 1-5-2 certainly is not, on paper at least, 4-2-2, and unless the team can sweep its remaining five Ivy League games, it will have no chance of repeating as Ivy League champs.

After the lackluster start, the team's attitude currently seems to be regroup and reassess.

Offensively, the team lacks the scorers that played so integral a role last season. At this point in the season last year, Mike Nugent '02, now playing with the Chicago Fire of the MLS, and then-freshman Adrian Melville, both had five goals on the season. The combined total of 10 goals amassed by two of the team's scorers last season equals the total number of goals scored this season by the entire team. This year, however, 10 different players have scored one goal each.

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"We have no player with more than one goal, and last year we had a couple of guys we could turn to," Barlow said. "We need to start finding people who are gong to be in the right spot."

Defensively, the team has played solidly, though its loss of focus at crucial times has been its Achilles heel.

"We've given up too many goals off of corner kicks, right after another goal, or off breakaways where we got caught losing our concentration," Barlow said.

Three games in recent memory —a 3-2 overtime loss to Rider on Sept.

25 and 1-0 losses to Dartmouth and Columbia — were won by the opposition on breakaways, the results of fatal lapses of concentration.

"With a lot of guys that don't have a lot of experience, where the game is going so fast and they're not used to it, one of the things they have a hard time with is staying with it for 90 minutes," Barlow said of the team's eight freshmen, more than half of whom have seen playing time.

"Every play is so crucial, and they need to keep their concentration."

Barlow characterizes the no. 11-ranked American team that arrives to play the Tigers tomorrow night as a team that plays "attractive attacking soccer." Against a team like that, it's especially crucial for defensive lapses to be nonexistent. Handing the 10-2 Eagles their third loss would be the very boost the Tigers need as they begin the second half of what is still in the minds of many of the players a young, young season.