Rebounding From Disappointing Loss to Dartmouth, PU Men’s Soccer Rallies for Wins over Rutgers, Brown
After suffering a heartbreaking 2-1 overtime loss to Dartmouth in its Ivy League opener on October 4, the Princeton University men’s soccer team could have felt sorry for itself.
Instead, the Tigers displayed an upbeat mentality under the circumstances. “This team has shown some resilience and good leadership,” said Princeton head coach Jim Barlow.
“We have had good training sessions and the spirit is high. They were not discouraged after the Dartmouth loss, they still believed they could do some good things.”
In its next game against Rutgers three days later, Princeton did a lot of good things as it pulled away to a 5-2 over its local rivals.
“We came out and went down by one goal but we responded well, it was our best 90 minutes of the season,” said Barlow, who got three goals and an assist from Thomas Sanner in the win over the Scarlet Knights with Cameron Porter adding two goals and an assist.
“We were sharp with the ball. It was not just that we got five goals but four of them were really good goals. We were on the same page in the buildup. It was a lot more of an open game than some of the others.”
Heading into a critical Ivy contest against visiting Brown last Saturday, Barlow sensed that the game wasn’t going to be as open.
“They had four shutouts in a row so we knew it was going to be tough,” said Barlow.
“If we had lost the first two games at home in the league, it would have greatly diminished our chances of winning the title.”
Despite finding themselves trailing the Bears 1-0 at half, the Tigers still liked their chances.
“When we got to the half, the theme was that we had the ability to get goals, we just had to pass sharper to open up their defense a bit,” recalled Barlow
Senior star Porter got things going, drawing a penalty kick and then burying it as the Tigers knotted the game at 1-1 at the 68:46 mark.
“Cameron is a big, strong guy and there are a lot of big, strong, defenders and they get tangled up a lot,” said Barlow. “It is tough on the referees. He was in a good spot and Brendan McSherry did a really good job getting a cross into him.”
About 15 minutes later, Princeton took the lead as senior midfielder Joe Saitta scored his first career goal, a tally that proved to be the difference as Princeton prevailed 2-1.
Nico Hurtado started the winning play in the midfield, finding Vikram Pothuri, who crossed the ball to Saitta.
“Vikram is a good passer; we haven’t used him a lot but we started him in the second half and he had a really good game and helped set up the winning goal,” said Barlow, whose team improved to 5-3-2 overall and 1-1 Ivy with the victory.
“Saitta has had a lot of games recently where he has been strong. He didn’t have his best game against Dartmouth but he had a great game earlier against St. John’s and he was really solid against Rutgers. He did a great job against Brown, not only scoring the winning goal but passing really well.”
Barlow knows that the Tigers have to keep playing well to stay on the winning track in a league known for its parity.
“It is still going to be the same thing every week,” said Barlow. “There are four teams that are 1-1 in the league (Princeton, Penn, Brown, and Columbia), two are 2-0 (Dartmouth and Harvard) and two are 0-2 (Cornell and Yale). From week to week, you could be really happy or very disappointed.”
After hosting Loyola in a non-league contest on October 14, the Tigers head to New York City on Saturday for what shapes up to be another hotly-contested Ivy battle.
“We have a tough game at Columbia (4-5 overall), they lost their first league game, and then they came from behind to beat Penn on Saturday,” said Barlow.
“It is a tough place to play, we have benefitted from having four home games. Now we have to see if we can win on the road.”