After two early season victories, Dartmouth's men's soccer team was looking toward this past Saturday's Ivy League opener against Princeton chomping at the bit. Despite this hunger for victory, the Big Green could not solve the riddle that was keeper Jason White, and Dartmouth lost, 3-0.
In back and forth play during the first half, Princeton struck first when senior Mike Nugent drilled a low shot past Dartmouth goalie Ben Gebre-Medhin '02 from 18 yards out. Tigers Matt Behncke and Adrian Melville picked up assists on the play.
Dartmouth controlled much of the play, but simply couldn't finish off their attacks.
The Tigers came storming out of the gate and Behncke gave them a 2-0 lead at 55:48 on a penalty kick. Dartmouth began putting the pressure on White, launching several solid shots, but the Big Green simply couldn't get a break.
Nugent put the feisty Dartmouth team out for good with a penalty kick at 80:39. This was the second two-goal game of the season for Nugent, who now has nine points in four games.
Gebre-Medhin came up with a trio of stops while White turned back eight shots from the Big Green. It was the third shutout of the season for White, who has allowed only one goal.
Injuries did not help Dartmouth's cause during the game.
"We lost Tommy Billings before the Princeton game ... that may have been on our minds throughout the game," said sohpomore forward Matt LaBarre.
With the loss, Dartmouth falls to 2-1, 0-1 in the Ivy League while Princeton improves its mark to 3-0-1, 1-0 in the Ivies.
"This loss doesn't worry me as much as in the past when a 3-0 loss would have really hurt us," said Gebre-Medhin of how he felt about the team bouncing back.
In the season opener, Dartmouth clipped the ninth-ranked Demon Deacons of Wake Forest in new coach Jeff Cook's first Dartmouth appearance. Wake Forest dominated play, firing 21 shots on Gebre-Medhin in the Dartmouth net.
The senior keeper made three big stops and came away with his 10th career shutout, tying him for fifth-place in Dartmouth history with Lyman Missimer '79.
Dartmouth did catch a break in the game's final minute when Wake Forest's Bobby Gehring fired a shot off of the crossbar, narrowly missing the game-tying goal.
Co-Captain Danny Markman '02 scored the game's lone goal at 26:42 when he cashed in from a scramble for the ball in front of the Demon Deacon net.
After having a pair of games called off, Dartmouth next played in its home opener against Providence. Dartmouth jumped on top at the tail end of the first half when Rob Daly '04 fed Juan Romera '03 knocked a shot past the Friars' Danny Glynn at 41:08. Damien Quinn '04 also got an assist on the score.
Daly then stole a backwards pass in Providence's zone and beat Glynn to the far side at 48:57 to put Dartmouth up 2-0. Seth Eaton '04 added his first career goal at 62:24 to wrap up the scoring at 3-0 on a pass from LaBarre.
Dartmouth will not be able to let this loss get to them as the season continues this coming weekend in Palo Alto, CA when the Big Green play a pair of games at Stanford. Friday night Dartmouth takes on the Cardinal at 7:30 P.M. and then plays California " Berkeley Sunday at 11:30 A.M.
"We're just going to have to rise to the occassion [this weekend]. Against Stanford your defense has to be flawless and you have to convert that final push of the ball towards the goal," LaBarre said.
