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 (Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction) caption:
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Spicer's Confidence Up Front Pays Dividends As Tiger Men's Soccer Locked in Ivy Dogfight
By Bill Alden
It would have been understandable if Princeton University soccer star Darren Spicer spent last summer in his native Diamond Bar Calif., chilling out on a Southern California beach and enjoying the Pacific breeze.
Instead, Spicer opted to bake in the humidity of the Washington, D.C. area where he worked at several summer camps and trained with local college players.
Spicer's decision to stay east has helped him shoot to the top of the Ivy League scoring charts as the speedy junior forward leads the league with 12 goals.
After getting an assist in Princeton's 4-2 win over visiting St. Peter's last Wednesday, Spicer asserted that he hit the pitch this fall with a different attitude after his rigorous preseason training.
"I worked really hard this summer, it gave me confidence going out there for the season," said Spicer, who stayed with teammate Ben Young over the summer. "I was training a lot in the off-season. I was helping run camps this summer and playing every day against guys from schools like Maryland and Georgetown."
After scoring a total of seven goals in his first two seasons, Spicer has clearly become a more dangerous player around the net. "I'm working hard and finishing when I get around the goal," explained Spicer, who scored a goal last Saturday as Princeton tied Cornell 1-1. "That's the biggest difference, just finishing my chances."
Princeton head coach Jim Barlow is pleased with Spicer's development. "He's been so great, he never stops working," said Barlow. "He sets an example the way he handles himself everyday in training. His feet have gotten better and he has a better knack of where to be around the goal. He's fitter, faster, and stronger. He's gotten himself way more dangerous."
Barlow was happy with the way his team got more dangerous in the wake of its disappointing 5-2 lost to Harvard on October 23 which kept the Tigers from going into first place in the Ivy League.
"We had a chance on our home field to take sole possession of first place," said Barlow, recalling the loss to the Crimson which saw Princeton surrender four goals in a six-minute stretch in the second half. "We started off really strong but as the game went on, we fell apart. That made St. Peters a really important game for us. It was a good test to see if we could start defending as a group again."
A key in the 4-2 win over the Peacocks, however, was the opportunistic play shown by the Tigers on offense as it scored four goals on eight shots with Adrian Melville finding the back of the net twice and Teddy van Beuren and Rachman Blake adding one apiece.
"Fortunately, we put away our chances today and got a little bit of a cushion," explained Barlow. "But with a two-goal lead with two minutes left, we weren't comfortable against them. They're technically good, they move the ball very well. We knew that if we weren't really disciplined defensively, they would start picking us apart."
The Tigers, for their part, need to pick apart their Ivy competition if they are to win their first league title since 2001. "We've got to take care of our games," added Barlow, whose club is now 7-4-4 (2-1-2 Ivy) and hosts Penn on November 6 before playing at Yale on November 13. "If we take care of our games, I think there is a good chance that we win the league."
Princeton is in the thick of a dogfight for the title, locked in a four-way tie for second with Harvard (3-2 Ivy), Brown (3-2), and Yale (3-2) behind front-running Dartmouth (3-0-2).
The diligent Spicer believes that he and his teammates can scratch their way to the top of the tightly-bunched pack. "Everyone is working really hard, we're really pushing for these last games," maintained Spicer.
"It's a big couple of weeks for us. I think we've just got to stay together defensively. Our best games have been where we don't give anything up. We get our goals from being organized in the back."
And it certainly helps to have a confident finisher like Spicer up front to put away the chances generated by that defensive organization.
