After shutting out Drexel last Tuesday, the men's soccer team seemed to have gotten its season back on the right track. This weekend at the Penn Invitational in Philadelphia confirmed this, as the Tigers (3-1-1) defeated Fairleigh Dickinson University (1-3-1), 2-0, on Friday before battling No. 18 South Carolina (4-1-1) to a 2-2 draw on Sunday.
Over the weekend the Tigers were led by the especially strong play of senior forward Ryan Rich, who finished the weekend with a goal and two assists.
The Tiger began the tournament in style with a solid win over FDU, which was coming off a 2-0 loss at Duke.
Junior forward Adrian Melville started out the scoring in the 17th minute. Junior midfielder Alex Reison sent him a pass on the right side, which Melville calmly collected and blasted past the Knights' keeper, Elvir Prasovic.
The game then settled down with both teams having ample opportunities to score. Princeton had 11 shots in the contest compared to 10 for FDU.
In the 71st minute, however, Princeton broke through the FDU defense again. Rich sent a cross into the box from the right side, and sophomore defenseman Marc Dubois collected the pass to score his first career goal. It was Rich's first assist of the game.
The Tiger defense, anchored by senior midfield Doug Hare, shut down the Knights, leaving their head coach, Seth Roland, frustrated at the uninspired performance.
The Knights went on to lose to Penn on Sunday by a score of 1-0.
Princeton junior keeper Erik White guarded the net like a panther, pouncing on four saves to earn his second shutout of the season. Prasovic finished with two saves.
In the second game on Sunday against South Carolina, the Tigers found themselves facing a ranked opponent for the second time this season. Yet the result was a far cry from the Tigers' 6-0 loss to Akron.
Twice the Tigers found themselves in a one-goal deficit, and twice they managed to rally and even the match.
"Coming back two times in the second half is telling of our team's strong senior leadership," Hare said. "We were disappointed with a tie, which is always like kissing your sister, but outplaying a team ranked in the top 20 nationally is nothing to regret for too long."
The Gamecocks were coming off an upset loss to Penn on Friday, their first of the season. Yet they came into the game confident that they could pull out a win.
South Carolina struck first before halftime in the 43rd minute. Mike Sambursky collected the ball on the left side and sent a cross to Ayo Akinsete on the far post. Akinsete banged home the pass for his team-high fourth goal of the season.
Far from despairing, however, the Tigers came right back after halftime and Rich put away his first goal of the season at 49 minutes, 32 seconds on a rocket shot from just outside the 18-yard box.
Ten minutes later found the Gamecocks back on top on a driven shot to the upper left corner of the goal by defender Greg Reece. Defender Josh Alcala earned the assist on the play.
But led by Rich the Tigers responded. In the 65th minute, Rich crossed the ball to Reison, who nonchalantly put the ball in the back of the net.
The Tigers then proceeded to dominate the Gamecocks physically, especially in the midfield, but neither team could convert on another goal.
The game went to two overtimes, before ending as a tie. Princeton outshot South Carolina, 14-12.
White finished with five saves, while Gamecocks' keeper Brad Guzan had an excellent performance with nine saves.
The Tigers will continue their season by traveling to Wofford, S.C. next weekend to take on Furman and Wofford.
Princeton will then begin Ivy league play, for which expectations are high, on Oct. 2, when the team hosts Dartmouth.
"We will settle for nothing less than an Ivy League title this year," Hare said. "Everything is falling into place."
With the tenacious play they showed this weekend, the Tigers look to be a serious factor in the Ivy League this year.
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