Men's lacrosse needs one win to reach Tierney's seventh Final Four

For the men's lacrosse team, the NCAA selection committee finally got it right. After infuriating the squad in 1999, the group that determines the tournament bracket placed the Tigers in a spot they felt they deserved.

"I think it's great," junior attackman Matt Striebel said. "It's a lot better than last year, obviously. We're going to be playing one of two teams we know pretty well, so I think it's great for us."

Sunday night, the entire team gathered in Princeton Stadium to watch the NCAA Selection Show via satellite. Unlike many Tiger football fans this past fall, the lacrosse players did not leave the stadium disappointed.

The team received the No. 3 seed in the 12-team tournament and, more importantly, the first-round bye that comes with it. The Tigers will not have to begin play until the quarterfinals, May 20 at Rutgers, giving the team plenty of time to take care of its academic responsibilities before the tournament. Princeton will face the winner of the first-round matchup between No. 6 seed Maryland (10-4) and unseeded Hofstra (11-4). The Terrapins and Flying Dutchmen face off Sunday on the campus of UMBC.

Last year, the selection committee did not give Princeton a seed in the tournament, despite the fact that the Tigers won the Ivy League title and were on a nine-game win streak.This year, Princeton (10-2) earned its No. 3 seed. The only blemishes on the Tigers' slate were losses to the top two teams in the country. Syracuse (12-1) garnered the No. 1 seed, thanks to its victory over defending national champion Virginia (12-1) early in the season. The Cavaliers received the No. 2 seed in the tournament.

"I think the best way to put [the draw] is that it's fair," head coach Bill Tierney said. "It's tough — Hofstra and Maryland are good teams. It's going to be tough making it to the Final Four playing one of those teams. But we got what we deserved, and now we have to prove it on the field."

Princeton faced Hofstra earlier this season, defeating the Flying Dutchmen, 11-8, at 1952 Stadium in March. Much has changed since that early matchup, however. The Tigers lost their leading goal scorer, sophomore attackman B.J. Prager, to an anterior cruciate-ligament tear against Cornell. Senior midfielder — this year's Ivy League Player of the Year — has picked up some of the scoring slack. Hofstra has won 10 of its last 11 games, en route to winning the America East conference tournament to procure an automatic bid. Maryland is a perennial national power and received an at large bid, having been successful in the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference.

The year proved to be a good one for the Ivy League as well. Cornell (10-3) received an at large bid to the tournament, as well as the No. 8 seed. The Big Red will take on Georgetown, which qualified automatically as the champion of the Eastern College Athletic Conference, in the first round, Saturday. Cornell provided Syracuse with its only loss of the year, a shocking 13-12 win in Ithaca on April 12.

"I think it's great for the Ivy League — that we got two teams in," Striebel said. "It shows that the league is improving a lot, and that [others] take it seriously. They had a huge win against Syracuse and that's what got them into the tournament."