Men's lacrosse travels to Hobart, then awaits its seeding fate

With the Ivy League season out of the way — and struggles with national powerhouses forged through — it's about time the men's lacrosse team shoved aside that famous sports cliche, "We'll just take it one game at a time." The Tigers are looking ahead to the NCAA tournament, and, if everything goes according to plan, this weekend's game against Hobart will count for two games at once.

Although seeding in the NCAA tournament is not dictated by college lacrosse polls, it is likely that disposing of the Statesmen (7-4 overall, 5-1 Patriot League) will assure Princeton (9-2, 6-0 Ivy League) one of the top four seeds. The top four get first-round byes, so a win over Hobart could bring with it the equivalent of a first-round tournament win at no extra charge.

"If we win on Saturday, we'll be number four, barring any Georgetown upset of Syracuse," Princeton head coach Bill Tierney said.

Winning Saturday could be made very difficult by a Hobart team that has steadily improved over the course of the season. The Statesmen stumbled early in the year, losing to Army and Harvard before being slaughtered by Syracuse on March 28, 18-5.

They have turned things around, though, and secured an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament by winning the Patriot League championship. Hobart won five of six league games and also beat No. 9 Cornell, 14-10. The team's other two losses were squeakers against No. 4 Georgetown and No. 3 Loyola — the Statesmen fell by scores of 10-9 and 17-13, respectively.

Conditional

A Tiger win still would probably not enable Princeton to crack the top four if the Hoyas, currently ranked one spot ahead of No. 5 Princeton, manage to knock off the Orangemen in Syracuse, N.Y., on Saturday. Georgetown has its work cut out for it, though, running into a Syracuse club that Princeton junior goalie Trevor Tierney called "a great team." Should the Hoyas fall, the Tigers will likely control their own fate.

"[With a bye,] you get some rest. It gets you healthy," coach Tierney said. "It allows you to do more shooting, you get more conditioning in and you're ready for that opponent because you have a few days off."

A spell of rest is something this Princeton team could use. The Tigers are still recovering from the crippling losses of sophomore attackman B.J. Prager and freshman defenseman Brian Lieberman to injury. Those losses — particularly Prager's — have forced a considerable rearrangement of Princeton's lineup and some change in its game plan.

Prager was the center cog of the Tigers' offense, accounting for more than 20 percent of Princeton's goals. In a four-game stretch beginning with Yale on April 1 and ending with Harvard on April 15, Prager ripped off 15 goals. When he went down 10 minutes into the Cornell game, Prager already had a goal and an assist.

Now more than ever, Princeton relies on inexperienced players for its offense. Sophomore attackman Brendan Tierney and freshman attackman Sean Hartofilis should see considerably more playing time to make up for Prager's absence.

"Obviously, with the injuries to B.J. and Brian, we're still trying to find ourselves, mold ourselves a little bit," coach Tierney said. "So we lost one [to Syracuse]. We jumped back and played a real good game against Dartmouth. We're right on track."