Booters Waltz Past Flatfooted Tigers

Starting slowly against a surprisingly tight and confident Princeton defense. Harvard's soccer team struck for three goals in five minutes near the middle of the first half and methodically waltzed off with a 5-0 victory.

The Crimson a predictable win over the Tigers lifts Harvard's league leading Ivy record to 4-0-1 (7-0-1 overall) and drops Princeton's seventh place loop mark to 1-4.

Playing without frontliner Felix Adedeji, who was resting a back injury in hopes of being 100 per cent healthy for Brown on Saturday the Crimson was confronted with a close playing Tiger defense which pursued Harvard's offense doggedly and aggressively for the first 20 minutes.

The Crimson had trouble moving the ball against the stacked defense and just couldn't break the passes a spring loose the midfield and front line.

After Dragan Vnjovic scored Harvard first goal at 21-0 of the first half Princeton became a little scared land off on defense and generally played less confidently. Once Princeton fell back on defense, the Crimson was free to play its short passing game.

Stack Defense

From, this juncture it was all over for the Tigers Reminiscent of Yale Princeton at times changed its defense to a simple stack. The stack defense involved dropping back the entire team, with the exception of two lonely frontliners to the penalty area to protect the goal.

Harvard started to gun at will and by the final gun had outshot the Tigers 35-10. The Crimson attempted nine corner kicks to Princeton's five, while Harvard goalies Steve Kidder and Rich Salvato (who relieved Kidder with ten minutes remaining in the first half and finished the contest) had to make two and three saves respectively compared to the 15 accomplished by Princeton's Pete Dickson.

Once again Harvard's midfield and fullback lines were completely impenetrable, rebuffing every possible Tiger scoring drive.

Vujovic scored the only goal Harvard needed against the Tigers on an assist from Emmanuel Ekama. Ekama stabbed the ball at the top of the penalty area and dribbled in at the goal from an angle to the left.

He penetrated until he ran into a crowd of Tigers about 17 yards out tapped the fall over to Vujovic who was running close to the play on the left. The sophomore from Austria took two steps and then rammed home the tally into the far corner.

Junior Tony Van Nief scored the next goal just two minutes after Vujovic's shot hit the nets. The assist went to Chris Papagianis who picked up two points against Princeton to raise his record setting scoring statistics to 16 points, as the duo developed a perfect give and go up the center.

Van Niel hit Papagianis, who immediately returned the pass to Van Niel, who was wide open Van Niel wasted no time increasing Harvard's lead to two goals.

Three minutes later Papagianis netted Harvard's third goal on an assist from Bent Hinze. Van Niel who was playing in place of the injured Adedeji popped in a head shot on a corner kick by Hinze at 35 46 to give the Crimson its its 4-0 halftime margin.

Second half scoring was limited to an unassisted goal by senior Bobby Adams who retrieved the ball as it bounced away from a scramble in front of the net. He rocketed a high shot into the right hand corner from just inside the penalty area.