Wunsch's late goal leads men's soccer past Adelphi

One game after the men's soccer team snatched victory from Dartmouth on the strength of freshman forward Kyle McHugh's overtime goal, a rookie once again came up big for the Tigers. Six foot, two inch freshman defender Jame Wunsch blasted through a wall of Adelphi defenders with under a minute remaining in the game last night to head in a direct kick by senior midfielder Gianfranco Tripicchio and deliver a much-deserved win to the Tigers, 2-1.

"We had just given up a bad goal and we needed to get one back," Wunsch said. "We deserved to win this game after how we'd been playing. Gianfranco [Tripicchio] put a beautiful ball in and I got my head on it and aimed for the corner."

The goal capped an excellent game for Princeton (4-2-2 overall, 1-0 Ivy League). The Tigers came out strong from the opening whistle, controlling the run of play and consistently finding the open man. While Adelphi struggled to make the game more physical, Princeton was able to keep its distance from the Panthers and played with fluidity and finesse throughout the opening minutes.

The Tigers' patience paid off nearly twenty minutes in, when junior forward Ryan Rich converted a Wunsch pass for the first goal of the night.

Wunsch collected the ball near the 50-yard line and advanced, gathering speed as he evaded a Panther defender. The freshman then sent a beautiful ball 10 yards ahead of him to the cutting Rich, who collected the pass as he moved to the right of the goal. Rich got Panther goalkeeper Tom Cunningham to commit before deftly bypassing him and laying in the shot for the 1-0 Tiger lead with 26 minutes and five seconds remaining in the opening half.

Princeton built on the momentum of the goal, taking the ball strong to Adelphi's net and challenging Cunningham to make the saves. Unlike in some of their opening games, the Tigers did not have problems putting good shots on net and had far more quality scoring opportunities than Adelphi in the first half. Most notably, senior captain defender Jeff Hare hung in the air and had several headers that seemed to have goal written all over them. Cunningham was up to the task, however, and he stymied the Tigers' efforts to double their lead.

Cunningham's strong play seemed to motivate his team, and the Panthers were able to generate a few serious scoring opportunities before the halftime whistle blew.

"It started to break down a little bit at the end of the first half," Wunsch said. "Coach [Jim Barlow '91] gave us a good talking to at halftime about how we deserved the game, and we had to finish them off. If we got one more goal they would lay down and die, so we had to get that."

Adelphi continued its resurgence in the second half, forcing the Tigers to slow down and play a more physical game.

This strategy paid off for the Panthers when they were able to score on a second-chance opportunity off a corner kick. With white and yellow jerseys swarming in front of him, Princeton junior goalie Erik White appeared not to see the inital shot but got a piece of it anyway, sending the ball back into the box. There the Panthers pounced, rifling the rebound to the top of the netting to temporarily knot the score at one with 9:31 remaining in the game.

With calls echoing across the field from the bench to various players to "get us going," Princeton once again found its passing game and moved the ball to within striking distance. Then Wunsch stepped in, getting the Tigers going to their second-straight dramatic victory.