Tigers earn first victory

The men’s soccer team finished the weekend on a high note,beatingSeton Hall on Sundayafter a tough losson Fridayevening to Rutgers.

“Our guys are eager to get their first win,” head coach Jim Barlow ’91 said before the win. “We know they’re putting an awful lot into it, we’ve gotten better and we’ve put some good stretches of soccer on the field.”

“They’re big, strong, they have two very good outside wingers, they’re very creative,” sophomore forward Thomas Sanner said of Seton Hall (2-2-2). “We’ve been able to play against Seton Hall pretty consistently, so it’s usually a team that we can take care of as long as we’re playing well.”

Sanner and the Tigers (1-2) did just that in their home opener, knocking off the Pirates on the strength of freshman midfielder Bryan Windsor's first career goal, the only score of the match. After two tough losses, both of which saw the Tigers let up three goals, senior goalkeeper Seth MacMillan — who had four saves on the day — and his defense held on to earn the win.

“This year so far we’ve been frustrated that we’ve given up goals that we think were preventable,” Barlow said. “The big focus in our discussions and our preparation has been trying to get things secure defensively.”

That preparation paid off Sunday and looked to have done the same early in Friday’s game against Rutgers (3-2-1), which started off strong for the Tigers with a goal from Sanner in the first seven minutes. The Scarlet Knights tied the game up 10 minutes later and added two more goals to the scoreboard by the end of the first half.

“We had a big talk about how we wanted to come out and control the tempo, and for the first 15 minutes we really did come out, we controlled it, we dominated,” junior forward Cameron Porter said. “Unfortunately, probably about five to 10 minutes after that [goal] we lost the tempo of the game, they started pushing on our end.”

Princeton tried to make up the score differential in the second half, but fell short. Porter found the back of the net at the 81-minute mark, but the game ended with a 3-2 loss for the Orange and Black.

Both Sanner and Porter were able to score goals off of penalty kicks, which Porter said is rare.

“We’ve made progress for sure from the first game to the second game,” Sanner said. “At the beginning of the season we’re just trying to keep moving forward and progressing.”

After their first win of 2013, the Tigers will go for their first road win of the season Wednesday when they face Loyola in Baltimore.