PRINCETON, N.J.--The clock has struck midnight for the Harvard men's soccer team. HARVARD  0 PRINCETON  1

Harvard (4-6-1, 2-3 Ivy) dropped a 1-0 decision to Princeton (6-6-1, 2-2) early Saturday evening at Princeton's Lourie-Love field. The Crimson's third Ivy League loss of the season makes it all but impossible for Harvard to claim even a share of the Ivy championship.

"You can't win an Ivy championship with threelosses in the league, and we have three losses,"Harvard Coach Steve Locker said. "Right now theseboys have to learn to play for pride."

The Tigers converted the match's only goal at32:47 when senior Chris Halupka buried a directkick into the upper left-hand corner of theHarvard net from about 25 yards out. Halupka'sshot soared just over the Crimson's wall ofdefenders and past senior goalkeeper JordanDupuis.

It was Halupka's first goal of the season, andthe victory extended Princeton's winning streak tofour games.

"It's kind of the story of our season; we'llcome out, we'll be strong at the beginning andwe'll be dominating a team," said captain AndrewLundquist. "Then an unfortunate goal will go in,and that kind of just knocks the wind out ofeveryone for a while. And it wasn't even that theyearned the goal really; it was just a free kick,and they happened to put it in."

The loss was particularly dissatisfying forHarvard because it controlled the action most ofthe way, especially in the first half. But as hasbeen the case all year, the Crimson was plagued byan inability to score.

"I thought we did well in the first half,"Locker said. "We battled hard; we created somegood opportunities. We just couldn't seem to getthe goal."

Harvard had its chances in the first half,winning nearly every contested ball. And withpossession came several scoring opportunities thatthe Crimson barely missed capitalizing on.

Harvard's best scoring chance came in thegame's 21st minute when freshman forward NickLenichek drove in left and sent a cross into thebox to junior Chinezi Chijioke. Chijioke's headersailed just wide right of the goal.

In the 42nd minute, the Crimson had two cornerkicks within a 19-second span. Both went fornaught.

Early in the second half, Harvard's pressurecontinued. In the 50th minute, junior midfielderArmando Petruccelli fired an indirect kick on goalthat was punched out by Princeton goalkeeper JeffGillie before it could sneak into the right cornerof the net.

"We've been struggling scoring goals all year,and it showed today," Petruccelli said. "We playedwell; we worked hard. Our strikers really haven'tbeen scoring goals for us."

As the match wore on, Harvard became moredesperate and abandoned its game plan. Petruccellipushed forward rather than remaining in hiscenter-midfield spot, and the Crimson stoppedworking the ball through the middle and begansending long passes into the Tigers' end.

The strategy, or lack thereof, provedineffective as Harvard did not have a qualityscoring chance the rest of the way.

"I thought we left our tactics a little bit intrying to get that goal back too quickly insteadof just playing our soccer," Locker said. "Wereverted to a little bit of long-ball play andtrying to get behind them, and that was just tooeasy for them to defend."

"I felt that we needed someone up there toscore," Petruccelli said. "I left the middle, andI pushed up there just hoping to get some sort ofgoal. It didn't work for us."

The match was hotly contested throughout asboth teams engaged in extremely physical play. Atotal of 35 fouls were called in the game, andfour yellow cards were issued.

The most egregious violation came at the 51:55mark when Princeton's Matt Striebel streaked intothe box after a ball. Dupuis beat Striebel to theball and controlled it, but Striebel did not slowdown and plowed into Dupuis.

Dupuis took exception to the hit, and got rightin Striebel's face as senior sweeper Lee Williamscame back to let Striebel know his play wasunappreciated. The referee immediately called fora time stoppage and issued Striebel a yellow card.

Shots on goal for the match were relativelyeven, with Princeton taking eight to Harvard'ssix. Only three Harvard players were able to pullthe trigger, however. Petruccelli led the Crimsonwith three shots, Chijioke tallied two and juniorChris Rollins fired once.

Harvard will next be in action on Wednesdaywhen it battles Fairfield on Ohiri Field. TheCrimson's next Ivy match is also at home, aHalloween afternoon showdown with Dartmouth.

PRINCETON, 1-0at Lourie-Love Field, Princeton, N.J.Harvard  0  0  --  0Princeton  1  0  --  1

ScoringPrin--Halupka (unassisted) 32:47.Shots: Har 6; Prin 8.Saves: Har--DuPuis 4; Prin--Gillie 2.

CrimsonSeth H. PerlmanPELIGROSISIMO: Freshman midfielderMICHAEL PELLER (left) prepares to boot the ballduring Princeton's win.