Though devastating early season losses dashed the men's soccer team's Ivy League title hopes, Princeton (1-2-1 Ivy League, 6-5-3 overall) is looking to the final three games of the schedule to improve upon last year's six-win season. The Tigers only need one more win to better last season's efforts. With two home games against league leaders Harvard (3-1-0, 10-4-0) and Penn (3-1-0, 7-4-1) and an away game against Cornell (2-6-3, 1-2-1), any victory will be hard-fought. Princeton will have its first chance at a win this Saturday against Harvard at Lourie-Love Field.
The Tigers are heading into the match after a gutsy 2-2 tie at Columbia in their latest effort. After Columbia pulled ahead 2-1 with just over a minute remaining in regulation, it looked like Princeton had been condemned to another heartbreaking loss.
Junior forward Kyle McHugh had other plans, however, scoring with 35 seconds left in the match. Although the Tigers could not pull out the victory in overtime, the team showed that it still has plenty of fight as it finishes out the season. The team is going to need all of that fight to fend off visiting Harvard.
Heading into the match, the Crimson is the hottest team in the Ivy League. The squad has dropped just one league game, to perennial rival Penn at the start of the season, but is currently riding a five-game win streak. After winning two matches in double overtime, proving it can take close games. The Crimson then blew out its next two opponents, scoring at least five goals in each game.
In other words, the Crimson has the poise to win the close ones and the offensive capacity to turn it into a blowout as well. To top it off, two of those wins came against nationally ranked opponents, and forward Michael Fucito earned National Soccer Player of the Week honors from the Soccer Times.
Last season, the Tigers' 1-1 tie of Harvard ignited a late-season run that featured just two losses in the squad's final seven games. Though the Tigers are meeting the Crimson much later in the season, the team hopes to use the match as a springboard for a strong finale. In order for the Tigers to have any chance of stopping the surging Crimson, they will have to contain Harvard's electric freshman forward Andre Akpan.
Akpan, the Ivy League's leading scorer, has tallied eight goals and 11 assists for 27 points, also the leading figure in the Ivies. To put those figures in perspective, Akpan is also in the top-10 for goals and assists nationally in Division I and is the leader in points for a freshman. Sophomore forward Mike Fucito trails his teammate by just four points. The Crimson is certainly not lacking in firepower.
The Tigers will rely on sophomore goalkeeper Joe Walter and junior defender Matt Kontos to stem the attack. If the Tigers can slow down Harvard's top-two scorers and net a few goals in the process, the team might find itself in same spot as it was in last year, on the brink of an end-of-season run.
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