Men's Soccer: Draw dashes hopes of Princeton repeat

On each of the past two weekends, the men’s soccer team took a very early lead against a league opponent, reviving their hopes of finishing the season on a positive note and possibly even finishing the league season with a winning record.

But in both games seventh-place Princeton let up a disappointing equalizer late in the first half and never got it back.

When the Tigers (5-9-2 overall, 1-4-1 Ivy League) prepared to face Cornell (8-2-5, 3-1-2) on Sunday, Oct. 30, their odds of returning to the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row were already pretty slim. Their record was well below .500 and their Ratings Percentage Index was low, so they were virtually out of contention for an at-large bid.

Though they would not have controlled their own destiny, at 1-3-0 in the league, wins in their final three games would have given them a chance at defending their Ivy League title and winning its automatic berth to the tournament.

Playing on the turf Plummer Field because the grass Myslik Field was covered in snow, Princeton got off to a lucky start on a Cornell own goal in the 14th minute. Freshman forward Cameron Porter crossed the ball into the box, where freshman midfielder Julian Griggs and senior forward Antoine Hoppenot tried to chase it down and put it past the keeper.

To prevent them from doing so, a Cornell defender rushed to clear the ball and accidentally kicked it into his own team’s net. The Big Red erased Princeton’s lead in the 40th minute when forward Daniel Haber beat out his defender and pushed the ball past sophomore goalkeeper Seth MacMillan.

The score would remain tied 1-1 throughout the second half, sending the game into overtime. Princeton had a good chance in the 105th minute in the second overtime when junior forward Matt Sanner nearly got his head on a 24-yard free kick by sophomore defender Chris Benedict, but ultimately neither team could score the go-ahead goal. The tie effectively eliminated Princeton from playoff contention.

“Before we tied with Cornell there was a very slim chance anyway,” junior defender and captain Mark Linnville said, noting that elimination has not discouraged the team from going all out in its final few games. “We’re just trying to work hard for ourselves now.”

After defeating Lehigh 2-0 in a non-league game on Tuesday, the Tigers headed down to Philadelphia to face a struggling Penn team (7-7-2, 2-4-0) that is now in sixth place in the league.

Just like in the Cornell game, Princeton got off to a positive start. In just the sixth minute, Griggs picked up a feed from Hoppenot near the box. With Penn’s center defender coming at him from the right, Griggs shot with his left foot from the 18 and sent it into the upper 90 on the goalkeeper’s right side.

“That was a great way for us to start off,” Griggs said. “We were dominating play for most of the half.”

But in the 36th minute, with MacMillan down after stopping a free kick, Penn defender Jake Levin recovered the ball and scored the equalizer. It was a goal that head coach Jim Barlow ’91 thought the Tigers should not have given up, and it changed the momentum of the game in Cornell’s favor.

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“We thought we had made some improvement with a good effort against Cornell and a shutout against Lehigh,” Barlow said of the team’s defense in an email. “That gave Penn some confidence and got them back in the game.”

In addition to gaining momentum from scoring, Linnville noted, after Griggs’s goal the Penn defense took steps to ensure that Hoppenot would not slip any more passes behind them.

“Their back four dropped very deep and tried to negate the space behind them,” Linnville said. “They were hard to get behind and really get dangerous off of the way we usually do, with [An]toine getting behind, with Julian getting behind.”

In the 75th minute, Penn forward Stephen Baker beat his defender and gave his team the go-ahead goal, giving them a 2-1 lead they would hold onto until the final whistle. This marked the fifth time in six league games that the Tiger defense had allowed two goals or more, in contrast to last year when the league champs let up two goals to an Ivy League opponent just once.

“It has been so frustrating because we haven’t conceded a lot of shots on goal,” Barlow said. “But defending is a team issue. It starts with protecting the ball better when we have it, playing more in the opponent’s half, not committing fouls that lead to restarts and then making sure there is pressure on the ball after a turnover.”

Senior midfielder Manny Sardinha put up two strong shots in the final minutes, but Quaker goalie Tyler Kinn continued to make strong saves, as he had throughout the night.

“We had a couple chances in the last few minutes of the game where I thought for sure we were going to score a goal, but the keeper made a few good saves,” Griggs said. “It was a good display from Penn. They kept the ball really well; we didn’t have the ball so we didn’t have any chances really. It was just that they dominated possession, and when we had the ball we just couldn’t find a way to keep it.”