Boys unbeaten with win vs. PHS
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Being undefeated at the midway point of the season is nothing new for the Princeton High boys’ soccer team.
The Little Tigers had not lost a regular season game since midway through the 2006 season, and came into Tuesday’s game at West Windsor-Plainsboro North with a perfect 7-0 record.
For WW-P North, being undefeated this late in the season is a new experience, but not one the Knights were not prepared for after a great finish to last season that saw them reach the state Group III semifinals.
”It was exactly how I thought it would be,” North coach Trevor Warner said after his team emerged with a 2-0 win over PHS to improve to 9-0 on the season. “We were fortunate. We had a couple of chances that we put away. You have to give them credit. They played the ball real well today, probably better than us as far as possession.
”But when you have guys like Scotty (Kelly) up top who can break free and Mohamed (Conteh), who sees the field so well, it takes one, and in our case two today, to put them away.”
Drew Eccleston scored a first-half goal off an assist from Kelly to open the scoring. Kelly then scored a goal of his own off an assist from Conteh in the second half to give the Knights their first win ever over Princeton.
”It felt good going into the game knowing we were both undefeated,” said Eccleston, who has six goals and five assists this season. “One of us would still come out undefeated and it was a good game that felt real good to play.
”We wanted to build off last year and we work so hard for every game. We go into every game knowing we have to work so hard for everything and we always try real hard.”
At the midway point last season, the Knights were hovering around .500 and wondering if they would even make the state tournament. Now, with a Central Jersey Group III title to their credit and a perfect record so far this year, the Knights won’t sneak up on anyone.
”In the summer league we talked about the fact that even though it was a summer league, teams were going to approach us like they wanted to show us they could knock us off,” said Warner, whose team will play Nottingham today at 5:30 p.m. at Mercer County Community College. “So from the first day in the summer league, we kind of approached it with a mindset that you’re going to get everybody’s best, so you have to be better.
”I think at this point it is fair to say that maybe they bought into it then. It’s different, but I think they’ve gotten thicker skin through all that experience last year.”
The roll the Knights have been on has carried into this season, where they’re now playing at a Princeton-like level.
”It’s great to have good tests,” said Princeton coach Wayne Sutcliffe, whose team played without the injured Anastacio Perez. “We’ve had a lot of good tests this season and this was another test. It was a challenging game.
”Both defenses played well. We slipped up on the first goal on that restart, which we have to do better on. Both teams played well. I thought our guys, for the most part, did well containing their strikers.”
With the Knights’ win, they can be sure teams that were already coming after them hard will do so even more the rest of this season.
”We look forward to that,” Eccleston said. “We still just go out there and think of ourselves as a soccer team that is going to go out there and play our hardest. This was one of the fastest games we have played all year and we knew it would be that fast the entire game. We expected that.”
The Knights are playing at a high level right now. And they’re playing with the confidence of a team that knows it can play with anyone.”
”It showed in this game today,” Warner said. “In our game on Saturday we were down, 3-0, against North Hunterdon and we came back and won, 4-3. That game was a character builder. It takes a special group of kids to accomplish something like that. It’s a great feat.
”Kevin Nowak is a sophomore and he had an assignment today. I had another plan if he were to fatigue a little bit but he did not come out of the game once. He stayed right with Sam Kotowski, who is obviously a good player. He had his hands full today. He did a phenomenal job.”

