American legend says that on the evening of Halloween strange things happen. Tradition has it that children hit the streets to trick-or-treat in costumes emulating the evil spirits thought to be roaming the world on this day.
A strange thing did happen to the men's soccer team this fall break, only on the evening preceding Halloween. The evil spirits stirring from their graves in preparation for the Oct. 31 festivities made a quick pit stop in Princeton on Oct. 30 as Rutgers beat the Tigers in a 7-1 rout, the worst Princeton loss in 30 years.
The loss to Rutgers ended Princeton's three-game unbeaten streak, sustained by two ties and a 1-0 win over Harvard on Oct. 26. Princeton (3-8-4 overall, 1-3-1 Ivy League) then ended its break with a 1-0 loss to Cornell, a game which destroyed the Tigers' hopes of repeating as Ivy League champs.
Rutgers (8-6-3), not ranked nationally but seeded at fourth among the Mid-Atlantic teams, is traditionally one of Princeton's fiercest competitors. Proximity and equally-strong soccer traditions make the two natural rivals. The Scarlet Knights and Tigers played to a 1-1 tie last season, and this year's game looked, at least through the first half, as if it might be heading towards a similar fate. After 37 minutes of play, the game remained scoreless, until Rutgers' Chris Karcz broke through the Princeton defense and beat sophomore goalie Erik White to give the Knights the early 1-0 lead.
Rutgers had the edge throughout the match in shots, earning eight in the first half alone to Princeton's two. It was this eighth shot of the half which found the back of the net and gave Rutgers a 2-0 lead after the first 45 minutes.
The second half of play was, defensively, one of Princeton's worst all season. The Tigers gave up five goals total, the first coming just 46 seconds into the half. Senior keeper Jason White relieved his younger brother in goal after Rutgers' sixth score, registering one save and surrendering a goal himself.
"The loss to Rutgers was just very weird," senior forward Matt Douglas said. "We didn't feel like we were grossly outplayed. We just had a few lapses and they made us pay for them many times."
Freshman forward Darren Spicer scored Princeton's lone goal with three minutes remaining in the contest. The six-goal loss proved to be Princeton's worst under current coach Jim Barlow '91 and marked the worst defeat by a soccer team since the 1972 team fell to Brown by the score of 8-1.
The loss proved to be all the more unfortunate as it came just days after the Tigers' most exciting and optimistic victory of the season. Senior forward Matt Douglas's goal in the 80th minute of play against Ivy-rival Harvard (8-5-1, 2-2-1), an authoritative blast past one of the league's best keepers, was all that Princeton needed in back of stifling defense and stellar goalkeeping.
Princeton's win was its first Ivy League victory of the season and gave it hope, if just a small amount, of being able to still contend for the Ivy League crown despite early-season losses to Columbia and Dartmouth.
Yet that hope was dashed in the team's 1-0 loss to Cornell (4-6-3, 1-3-1) Saturday. Princeton outshot the Big Red 16-7 and earned six corner kicks in the contest but failed to put the ball past Cornell's Nate Dunlop. The Big Red scored the game-winner in the 77th minute on a frozen field littered with newly-fallen snow.
With two Ivy games remaining on its schedule, Princeton could still manage a .500 league record, though it will not be easy.
The top-rated team in the league, Penn, comes marching to Lourie-Love Field Saturday night in a game more significant for the Quakers than almost any in the history of the program. A win over Princeton would give Penn its first league championship in 22 years, and its first unshared title in 30 years.
The Tigers then close the season in New Haven against Yale, a team recently struggling just as much as the Tigers.
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