Men's Soccer Falls to Princeton, 3-2, in First Ivy Loss of the Season

Entering Saturday, Harvard men’s soccer coach Pieter Lehrer had lost only one conference home game. Outside of the Crimson’s 2013 season finale against Penn, Lehrer had emerged victorious each of the seven times he led his squad onto Jordan Field.

But the one time Lehrer did find himself on the losing side of an Ancient Eight contest, there were consequences, as the Quakers’ win on the season’s final day knocked Harvard out of first place in the conference. And on Saturday, the other Killer P accomplished the same feat.

Despite being outshot 19-7, Princeton (7-4-2, 1-2-1 Ivy) made the most of its opportunities against the Crimson (6-5-2, 3-1-0), scoring three goals in the first 47 minutes en route to a 3-2 victory—the Tigers’ first conference win of the year. With the loss, Harvard drops to second place in the conference behind reigning co-champion Dartmouth (8-3-1, 4-0-0).

After sharing the title with the Big Green in 2014, Princeton entered the season with high expectations before a tie with Brown and a loss to Columbia effectively eliminated the Tigers from championship contention. Princeton was held to just one goal in its first three conference games, but Saturday afternoon, the Tigers rediscovered their scoring touch.

Less than eight minutes in, Princeton got on the board after a ball squirted out to freshman midfielder Jeremy Colvin at midfield. Off to the races, the rookie pushed the ball forward 40 yards to the top of the box, where he blew by junior defenseman Daniel Smith and guided a shot into the left corner of the net to give his side an early edge.

The Tigers struck even more quickly in the second half. Taking a free kick in his own half, junior defenseman Mark Romanowski blasted the ball forward just one minute into the frame. Colvin then flicked the ball on to senior forward Thomas Sanner, who beat senior goaltender Evan Mendez with his left foot on his first touch to put Princeton up, 3-1.

“[On] some of the goals we gave up, we kind of lost focus a little bit from the game plan,” senior defenseman Andrew Chang said. “Overall, we’ve got to build from this and focus on the next game.”

The Crimson’s lone goal of the afternoon came in the 18th minute after Harvard was awarded a penalty kick. Leaving his net to clear away a bouncing ball in the box, Tiger senior netminder Ben Hummel crashed into sophomore midfielder Christian Sady just as he was trying to volley the ball toward the center of the field.

Sady collapsed to the ground, where he remained motionless in front of the referee, who had yet to make a call. After checking on the sophomore, the official consulted the line judge and awarded the Crimson a penalty shot. Senior forward Jake Freeman then stepped up to the spot and buried the penalty into the left side of the net to level the score at one.

The score remained even for much of the half, but Princeton capitalized on another Romanowski long ball to jump back ahead in the 40th minute. Running on to the defenseman’s ball along the right wing, junior midfielder Vikram Pothuri centered a cross on his first touch. Finding space inside the box, sophomore midfielder Daniel Bowkett then headed the ball inside the near post to give the Tigers the lead for good.

“Between Evan and the backline, the communication looked like it was a little off,” Lehrer said. “He hesitated a couple [times] and they had a chance to get in. I thought the backline did well—that communication error just happened twice and when you give up two goals, that’s going to hurt.”

After Princeton built its lead up to 3-1, Harvard had a chance to halve the deficit minutes later when senior forward Oliver White received a push from behind inside the box. But the referee determined that White had flopped, handing the senior a warning rather than a penalty kick.

Harvard finally shrunk the gap with 1:37 remaining as junior co-captain Andrew Wheeler-Omiunu, playing a full 90 minutes after missing the last two games with a hamstring injury, lifted a cross from sophomore forward Tyler Savitsky off the ground and over the head of Hummel.

In the game’s final minute, the Crimson immediately pushed forward, ultimately giving Freeman a chance to rip a shot from just inside the 18-yard line with 11 seconds remaining. But the shot deflected off a Tiger defender, ending both the threat and the game.

“We weren’t short on chances, we just have to finish them,” Lehrer said. “We had 19 shots. We’ve got to have at least 50 percent on goal, and we’d probably win that game.”

—Staff writer Jake T. Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com.