The celebration that began immediately after junior forward Matt Sanner received a cross on the fly and knocked it into the back of the net in the second minute of the second overtime was ostensibly a reaction to the thrilling end of a tight, back-and-forth game. But when the men’s soccer team watched the ball sail past Villanova goalkeeper John Fogarty on Friday night, it saw not just a game-winning goal, but also a potential turning point in its season.
The 2-1 victory over Villanova (2-2-2) at Myslik Field gave Princeton (1-3-1) its first win of the season and ended a frustrating streak of failing to capitalize on scoring opportunities. The Tigers had created many great chances for itself earlier in the game and earlier in the season. But the one that senior forward Antoine Hoppenot opened up when he passed up the right side to sophomore defensive midfielder Chris Benedict — who then crossed it to Sanner — was refreshing for the team because it actually culminated in a finish.
“Hopefully the flood gates will open and we’ll start scoring some goals here,” Sanner said. “Antoine did a good job running it down in the corner and then laid it off to Chris, and he just gave a perfect ball waist-high and I just side-volleyed it in. It was a tough one to finish but I was lucky to get a good foot on it.”
The goal ended an atypical game for this year’s Tigers, who had outshot their previous three opponents 47-27 heading into Friday night’s matchup. But Villanova had a strong second half on the offensive front, taking 13 shots and forcing junior goalkeeper Max Gallin to make seven saves in the final 45 minutes of regulation.
“We certainly had some stretches where Max Gallin kept us in it and our backs kept us in it, and [junior defender Mark] Linnville saved the day a million times, but we’re just happy to get the result,” head coach Jim Barlow ’91 said.
“They made it easy for me,” Gallin said. “I didn’t have to pull anything out of the upper corner today. It was a team effort.”
On the offensive end, Princeton struggled throughout the majority of both halves, although for two different reasons. The first half was emblematic of how its season had been going; the Tigers received nine restarts and five corner kicks and had plenty of opportunities within the box but could never find a way to convert. In the second half, on the other hand, they responded to Villanova’s offensive dominance by becoming an uncharacteristically counterattacking team, relying on fast breaks and long passes — which were often intercepted — and creating few shot opportunities for themselves.
“It was definitely more pressure in the second half,” Benedict said. “They’re a huge team, and we were playing too many balls in the air. We were playing into their game.”
Princeton’s best chance to score in the first half came after sophomore midfielder Dylan Bowman was tripped up while making his way into the box after receiving the ball off a corner kick. The Tigers were awarded a penalty kick, but Hoppenot’s shot was tipped by Fogarty and hit the right post, careening off into Villanova’s possession.
“We missed the PK at the beginning and that was demoralizing because we’ve had a bit of a problem scoring goals,” Sanner said.
While Princeton’s struggle to score continued throughout the first 80 minutes, the Wildcats began to have more and more threatening chances inside the box. The Tigers got lucky in the 81st minute, when Villanova midfielder Hayden Harr, standing close to the goal inside the box, was seemingly caught off-guard by a cross and managed only to tap the ball lightly straight at Gallin. One minute later the Princeton defense escaped another dangerous situation as Harr evaded the Princeton defense and shot unmarked, but Gallin trapped his shot.
In the next minute, however, the Tigers could not stop a run by Wildcats midfielder Emerson Lawrence until Gallin dove at Lawrence’s feet while trying to trap the ball and was called for a foul. Lawrence successfully converted the penalty kick, giving Villanova a 1-0 lead with just seven minutes remaining.
While the Wildcats looked poised to win, the Tigers kept threatening as the clock winded down, drawing four fouls and a corner kick in the next six minutes. In the 88th minute, while the ball was bouncing around inside the box after a long throw-in from Linnville, Hoppenot blocked a Villanova defender trying to head the ball. Hoppenot’s pressure forced a handball, and the Tigers were awarded a penalty kick.
As Linnville lined up for the penalty kick, he tried not to think about anything — not the Tigers’ season-long scoring drought, not the fact that he had the chance to tie it up with less than two minutes left, and certainly not Hoppenot’s missed PK in the first half.
“I just put my head down and tried to kick it as hard as I could,” Linnville said.
He did just that, launching the kick to the left side of the goal, but the diving goalie anticipated correctly and blocked the shot. Nevertheless, it was kicked so hard that it bounced out of his hands, rolled to the right and ended up in the side net.
“He guessed right. My heart stopped, thinking I‘d cost the team a win, and then it rolled in and I got really excited,” Linnville said. The goal sent the game to a sudden death overtime, the stage for Sanner’s goal.
“Sometimes the breaks go for us, and hopefully that starts to change,” Linnville said.
But the same breaks that helped out the Tigers on Friday night came back to hurt them on Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C., as Georgetown took advantage of a handball inside the box in the 25th minute to convert on its first of two penalty kick opportunities.
Princeton could not overcome the initial deficit and lost to the Hoyas — its second of four Big East opponents this season — 3-0.
The Tigers will look to improve on their 1-3-1 record next Sunday when they take on Monmouth in West Long Branch, N.J.
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