Tommy Davis scored his second goal of the game, off a pass from Peter Trombino with eight seconds remaining, to snap a 4-4 tie as #10 Princeton defeated Hofstra, 5-4, at Shuart Stadium Sunday afternoon. The Tigers improved to 2-2 on the season while the Pride, who dropped their third straight contest, fall to 1-3.
The Pride trailed 4-2 heading into the fourth quarter before sophomore Anthony Muscarella scored his second goal of both the game and the season 3:26 into the final period, cutting inside his defender and firing an 8-yard bullet past Princeton goal Alex Hewit to close the gap to 4-3. Pride sophomore Michael Colleluori tied the game with 4:56 to play with an extra-man goal from eight yards out off a pass from Michael Unterstein. But after each team had tie-breaking chance thwarted, the Tigers found themselves with the ball with 19 seconds remaining. After a timeout, Tiger attackman Peter Trombino moved the ball away from the middle of the field, right of Pride goal Danny Orlando. That opened a huge space for sophomore Tommy Davis to move in, take a pass from Trombino, and fire a 12-yard bounce shot over Orlando with eight seconds remaining. The Pride had a last second shot attempt by Ryan Miller but the shot went high and wide.
Princeton opened the scoring 6:57 into the contest as Davis scored his fourth goal of the season off a pass from Alex Haynie. It was the only goal of the quarter. The Pride tied the score at 1-1 when sophomore Anthony Muscarella scored his first goal of the season on a running shot from 11 yards out. But the Tigers took a 2-1 lead into the locker room when Bob Schneider took a short pass from Rob Engelke and went in on Orlando 1-on-1 and beat the freshman goalie for his fifth goal of the year.
The Tigers boosted the lead to 3-1 with 5:01 to play in the third when Mark Kovlar took a pass from Josh Lesko and beat Orlando for his seventh goal of the season. But the Pride closed the deificit with just over a minute remaining in the quarter as Michael Unterstein fed Colleluori who fired an 11-yard bounce shot past Hewit for his fourth of the season. Hofstra's excitement was short-lived as Mike DeSantis scored an unassisted goal from eight yards 22 seconds later for his second of the season to give the Tigers a 4-2 lead at the end of three quarters.
Danny Orlando made 13 saves in goal, including eight in the first half, for the Pride, while Hewit posted 11 saves for Princeton. The Tigers outshot the Pride 30-25. The Hofstra loss snapped a 16-game home winning streak.
The Pride will begin Colonial Athletic Association play next Saturday, March 24 at #14 Delaware at 7 p.m. The Tigers will host Bellarmine at 1 p.m. next Saturday.
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