Little Tigers reach MCT final
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
They’ll play the Mercer County Tournament boys’ soccer final tonight at Mercer County Community College.
But for those who braved the cold and were on hand for Wednesday’s semifinal, it certainly had the feel of a championship game.
”As Trevor (Warner) and I just agreed, it was everything it was supposed to be and then some,” Princeton High coach Wayne Sutcliffe said after his team knocked off top-seeded West Windsor-Plainsboro North, 2-1, in overtime to advance to tonight’s MCT final against Pennington.
Princeton, which took a 1-0 lead on a Sam Kotowski goal in the first half, saw WW-P North tie the game on a Scott Kelly goal with just over four minutes left in regulation. In overtime, Kotowski scored off a perfect ball from Will Slade on a restart to put the Little Tigers in their third straight final.
With the win, the Little Tigers improved to 14-2 and will take on Pennington tonight at 7:30 p.m. at MCCC. Princeton beat Pennington, 2-1, when the teams met last month. The loss was the first of the season for the Knights, who fell to 16-1.
”It’s fair to say that a lot of the pressure was on the other side,” Sutcliffe said of the Knights being undefeated. “We know what that is like. So I am speaking from some experience there. October 7 (the first meeting between the teams) is a long time ago and we’re a different team now. We were missing three starters that day. And we have Paul Ehrenworth now. He’s a multi-dimensional player and a great technical player. He’s given us another dimension since we were able to insert him into the lineup.”
The man of the hour for the Little Tigers on Wednesday was Kotowski, whose two goals gave him 26 for the season. Despite being smaller than many of the players in front of the goal, he managed to get his head on the ball from Slade and scored the game-winning goal.
”That ball was put perfectly,” Kotowski said of Slade’s free kick. “All I had to do was turn my head. I didn’t have to do much. I just tracked back a little bit right when he kicked it and I just turned my head to where I knew the ball was. It was a great ball from Will.”
The goal ended a classic semifinal game, which put the Little Tigers in the finals with a chance to defend their title from last year.
”It was a great game,” said Warner, whose Knights are the top seed in the Central Jersey Group III tournament that begins next week. “Both teams played hard and it was clean — no jibber jab. It was pure, and even though we lost, I felt like we got a lot out of the game. There is a mutual respect between the two teams. I told the guys it really didn’t feel like a loss because we gained so much out of it. At this time of year, to play a game like that against a great team, you get a lot out of it.”
Both teams felt like they had control of the game in overtime. But it was Kotowski’s goal that wound up making the difference.
”I thought after my guys got scored on, they played with better energy,” Sutcliffe said. “And I thought we were the better team in OT. Each team had some chances. I think my guys are fit and they can play for 100 minutes.
”We’re excited to get to the final. I can’t wait. We’ll regroup (Thursday) and knock it around and stretch and fine-tune a couple things. Pennington is a good team. We respect them. It will be a great game.”
Added Warner: “I thought we had a lot of momentum and in overtime we clearly had more chances. He was the guy that we were trying to stop and for the most part we did a good job, both this game and in the previous game against them. We took Kevin Nowak off (Kotowski) with about 12 minutes left to try to generate some offense on the outside, which we did. We wanted to put our best offensive players on the outside and create some chances, which we did.”
Kelly’s goal had given the Knights some momentum late in the game, but Princeton responded to the challenge and will now go for a second straight title.
”We all talked about what would happen if something like that happened in a game,” Kotowski said. “As captains, me, Corey (Marsh), Will (Slade) and Chris Bechler, we all talked to the team about what could happen. I think as a team we came back much more confident. We’re gelling at the right time and it is coming together for us.
”This is the best soccer of the season really, maybe even better than states. This is such a tough tournament with so many good teams. Hopefully we can win and carry it through to the state tournament.”
They’ll have a tough challenge in Pennington, which advanced with a shootout win over Notre Dame on Wednesday.
”The first time we played them they were one of the best teams we played, besides North,” Kotowski said. “They may be right up there with North. They have a couple hard-nosed defenders and a good guy in the middle. They’re a good group of guys but we don’t want them to come in here and win the Mercer County Tournament.”

