Princeton visits Brown for must-win matchup

It's just the men's soccer team's second Ivy League game of the fall, but while it might not make its season, it can certainly break it.

The Tigers, exhausted by their 11th-straight winless match against Rutgers, traveled to Dartmouth last Sunday for their league opener. Their hopes were shattered, however, by a horrid overtime loss to the reigning champions. Now Princeton (3-4-1 overall, 0-1-0 Ivy League) will travel to Brown on Friday, fighting to stay in the title race before hosting Northwestern on Sunday.

The math is simple. A win over the Bears (6-3-0, 1-0-0) is absolutely essential, both for the Tigers' morale and for their league hopes. With the Ivy champion decided solely by standing at the end of the season, allowing Brown to go 2-0-0 will send Princeton straight to the cellar and effectively end the Tigers' chances at the title.

The Bears, however, are riding a three-match winning streak, including an almost nonchalant victory in their Ivy League opener at Columbia, in which they trounced the Lions 3-1. More ominously for the Tigers, the Bears whitewashed Boston College, 3-0, over the weekend to end their eight-year drought against the Eagles.

In short, Brown got the start to the season that the Tigers had been hoping for.

The Bears have also been the Ivy's most dominant team in recent years, winning seven of the last 11 League titles, most recently in 2003. They were also last season's frontrunners until an ignoble 3-2 loss to the Tigers, followed by a second loss to Harvard, ended their quest to defend their title. One thing is certain: this time, they will be braying for revenge.

It was only the outstanding performance of senior keeper Bobby Guelich that prevented Sunday's loss from being worse than it was. His heroic effort masked the Tigers' lack of offensive capability against the Big Green, who registered 13 shots on goal to Princeton's two. Against the Brown defense, which hasn't allowed more than one goal in its last eight matches, that type of performance simply won't be good enough.

The Tigers keenly felt the absence last week of senior starting forward Adrian Melville, who was sidelined by injury. It is unclear whether he will be available to return to action Friday; if not, senior forward Darren Spicer must continue to bear the burden of the offensive load himself, as he did in earning Ivy League Player of the Week honors two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Guelich will be tested by Brown's impressive offense, which currently leads the league in both goals and attempts on goal. On average, the Bears have outscored their opponents by three goals to one so far this season, by far the largest margin in the league. Guelich will need to repeat the superhuman effort he made on Sunday to drag that average down.

Finally, the Tigers must avoid slipping in the closing moments of the match as they did last week. Princeton, after all, had been leading against Rutgers until the 85th minute, and Dartmouth's lone goal came in the 92nd.

The Tigers aren't quite out of the running yet. But if they can't overcome Brown, the season will be over almost as quickly as it began.

Friday's match should also set the tone for Sunday's non-league game against Northwestern. Going into the weekend, the Wildcats are also 6-3-0 and coming off a two-match winning streak. They travel first to Penn State on Friday before taking on Princeton at Lourie-Love. This will be the first-ever meeting between the Tigers and Wildcats.