On a sunny New Jersey late afternoon last Saturday, the men’s soccer team (5-3-1, 1-1 Ivy) fell 1-0 to No. 13 Princeton (8-1-0, 2-0), marking the Bears’ first loss since Sept. 10. The tight contest featured constant pressure on Brown’s defense by the Tigers and stalwart goal protection for both sides.
The Bears entered Saturday at third place in the Ivy League, coming off a close 2-1 win at home against Dartmouth last week. Following the loss to the Tigers, Brown slipped to fourth.
“I don’t think either team was at their best, and it became more of a battle,” Head Coach Chase Wileman told Brown Athletics. “Ultimately, we didn’t do nearly enough over the 90 minutes to earn anything out of the game.”
Despite the anticipation of a top-three Ivy League match-up, both teams started the game off slow: Brown conceded a number of early turnovers, and Princeton failed to hit the mark, sending a volley of errant shots past the goal.
As the Tigers found their stride, their forwards placed near-constant pressure on Bruno’s defense, rarely allowing the ball to leave Princeton’s offensive third. But despite the onslaught of attacks, the Bears’ defense did not back down.
Bruno resolutely stopped Princeton’s advances on multiple occasions, including threatening shots on goal from inside the box in the game’s 13th and 19th minutes. Brown goalkeeper Max Pfaffman ’28 displayed his agility on both occasions, deflecting the ball with his left leg in the former and extending his arm to bat down the ball in the latter.
In his fifth straight start, Pfaffman was a bright spot for Bruno, recording 6 saves.
“I’m always looking to find improvements to my game, and every match is an opportunity to learn,” he wrote in an email to The Herald. “At the end of the day, my job is to help the team get results. Winning is what matters most.”
But even Pfaffman’s staunch resolve was unable to prevent Princeton’s machine-like barrage on Brown’s goal.
Following another impressive save from the Brown goalie in the game’s 31st minute, Princeton was poised to take a corner kick. The Tigers sent a punt into the box from the right, but the Brown defense headed the incoming ball out of the goal area — right to where a Princeton forward was waiting.
The Tigers kept up the attack, trying to set up a header with a high-arcing pass, but the Bruno defense found the ball first. As it bounced out of the box, Princeton pounced once more.
Standing around 20 meters out, Princeton’s Liam Beckwith fired a bullet into the box, where his teammate Bardia Hormozi headed the ball to the bottom right corner of the goal. Lunging, Pfaffman scraped the ball just inches shy of the goal line, but Hormozi recovered his own shot, slipping the ball beneath Pfaffman’s outstretched arms to claim the first and only goal of the game.
Following the Princeton score, the Bears succeeded in moving the ball up the field. But aside from one unthreatening shot directly at Princeton’s goalkeeper, they were unable to create any real chances to bounce back before the half.
The first 41 minutes of the second half were, statistically speaking, nearly identical to the first half. Once again, Brown put up just 2 shots to Princeton’s 10, and Pfaffman recorded another 3 saves.
But during the final 4 minutes, Brown played with an energy they hadn’t been able to find all day. At last, Bruno was able to pressure Princeton’s defense, getting 3 shots off as the clock wound down.
In the 88th minute, the Bears mounted their final offensive. Off a pass from midfield, Mads Stistrup Petersen ’26.5 dribbled into the box and dished the ball left to an in-stride Isaiah Robledo ’29. Without missing a beat, Robledo delivered a strike, and the ball climbed through the air, seemingly destined for the net’s top-right corner.
But a spectacular, acrobatic save from the Princeton goalie dashed Brown’s hopes of a last-second miracle, effectively ending the game.
Reflecting on the 1-0 loss, Lorenzo Amaral ’27 wrote in an email to The Herald that the team was “not good enough.”
Amaral added that “it’s time for us to come together and continue to believe and work hard in training for our next Ivy game.”
The Bears will have the opportunity to reclaim the third-place spot in Ivy League standings when they host Penn next Saturday on Alumni Day. Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m. at Stevenson-Pincince Field.
