The men's soccer team could not recover from early first half mistakes as it fell to Princeton, 2-1, Saturday at Chase Field. The loss was the second home loss in a row for the Big Green, who saw their record drop to 2-8 overall, 1-2 in Ivy League play.
Princeton's first goal of the game, the result of a Big Green mistake, came just more than two minutes into the contest.
A crossing pass toward the box by Princeton's Andre Parris was misdirected by the Big Green's Andy Warner '99 towards the back of the net and past goalkeeper Matt Nyman '99.
The Tigers extended their lead to 2-0 15 minutes later when Jesse Marsch took a Seth Dorros crossing pass in the middle of the box and blasted it past Nyman to the right side of the goal.
The Big Green were able to respond with their only goal of the game eight minutes later when freshman Bobby Meyer scored his third goal of the season off of a pass from team points leader Hunter Paschall '96.
An apparent tying goal by Auggie Lopez '97 for the Big Green with three minutes remaining in the contest was disallowed because the official judged Lopez to be offsides on the play.
Lopez received a ball and beat Tiger goalie Stuart Reynolds one on one before putting the ball in the net, but Lopez was whistled for being offsides when he received the pass.
After taking many steps in the right direction in the Brown game last weekend, many team members felt that this game was more typical of early contests when the Big Green's mistakes killed their chances at victory.
"The game was a definite disappointment," Captain John Bosacco '96 said. "We had a lot of chances, but did not manage to finish any of them. As a result, we really didn't play well."
The Big Green's second league loss put them two games behind leader Brown with four games left to play in league. The Big Green have already lost to the Bears, 2-1, on Oct. 8 at home.
"We are hoping to win the rest of the games in the Ivy League, but we are now already two games down to Brown," Bosacco said.
"We we'll have to play our best and see where that leaves us, but a league title looks doubtful," he added.
The Big Green travel to the University of Massachusetts on Thursday and then will continue their Ivy League schedule with a trip to Cornell on Saturday.
"Everybody is focused on UMass and hoping to get a good win in that one," Bosacco said.
