Men's Soccer: Offense hopes to carry over momentum

After snapping a four-game losing streak with a 7-3 thrashing of Seton Hall this past Tuesday, the men’s soccer team will look to continue its offensive turnaround this Saturday in Providence against Brown.

The Tigers (2-6-1 overall, 0-1 Ivy League) overcame a long dry spell against Brown (5-4-1, 0-1) last season, beating the Bears for the first time in six years. Nevertheless, both teams are in very different places now than they were last season, when multiple Ivy League teams were breaking into the top 25 and an undefeated conference record was seen as the only way to a championship.

Now, with most of the contending teams coming off mediocre or poor preseason performances, the league seems much more open.

“The other teams in the league also aren’t doing so hot,” junior goalkeeper Max Gallin said. “They’re still great competition, they’re still really strong teams, but there have been a lot of interesting results. Results are falling in our favor even if we aren’t getting them ourselves.”

For Princeton, the first encouraging result in a long time came with this week’s victory. The scoring floodgates finally opened, breaking the team’s frustrating inability to capitalize on opportunities the offense created for itself, something which has plagued the team all season.

“We were getting crosses in, guys were filling in the box the way they should and we created our chances,” junior forward Matt Sanner said. “Hopefully we can keep that going and keep scoring goals.”

But on Saturday, the Tigers’ newfound offensive fluidness will be tested against a defense that, apart from a 5-1 loss to then-No. 22 Kentucky, has let up just three goals this season. Fresh off a performance in which Sanner and senior forward Antoine Hoppenot scored two goals each, the attacking corps will have a challenge in keeping up this success.

“They’re always really good defensively, and they’ve got a got a couple special guys up the field that can make things happen, but really they’re tough to score on,” Sanner said. “That’s always been their strength.”

Brown complements its lockdown defense with a speedy, counterattacking offense, which will look to get past Gallin by surprising the defensive midfield and backline by sending long passes up to the forwards.

For a Princeton team that has consistently dominated possession yet has been proven vulnerable to momentary lapses of focus, a strong counterattack from the Bears’ will test whether the Tigers can stay alert for a full 90 minutes.

“They’re pretty quick, and I think they’re going to send a lot of things over the top, so we have to watch out for the counterattack,” Gallin said. “Their forwards are pretty quick, so everything over the top we’ve got to take care of on our first ball.”

Between the Seton Hall win and the 4-1 loss at Dartmouth to open up the Ivy League season, the Tigers have allowed seven goals in two games, a rate they must reduce to be competitive in the rest of the conference season.

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Gallin wrote off the defensive struggles of the last two games, noting that two of the goals that Seton Hall scored occurred in the last 10 minutes when Princeton had the game in hand. Though he acknowledged that the team has often been hurt by its occasional inability to play as a cohesive unit, he added that its unity has been improving.

“Last night was the first time we really buckled down and were moving all over the field as one team,” Gallin said of the Seton Hall victory.

Before a 2-0 loss to then-No. 13 Boston College on Sept. 27, the Bears had won 17 straight games at home and will be looking to start that streak anew. Brown dropped its Ivy League opener with a 2-1 road loss to Columbia but bounced back to draw No. 9 St. John’s — the same team that handed the Tigers a shocking 3-2 defeat in double overtime — to a 0-0 tie.

Despite the team’s unenviable record, many Tigers said that many of their recent losses have been due to avoidable or unlucky incidents, not necessarily poor performance on their part. This recognition helps them maintain a positive attitude heading into Saturday’s game.

“Our guys have done a pretty good job at leaving the past behind and worrying about the things they can control,” head coach Jim Barlow ’91 said in an email. “We know how close we’ve come to four or five more wins, and that gives us confidence to enter every game knowing we can win.”