31 wins and counting: Men's lacrosse opens Ivies against Yale

Domination.

It is the first word which comes to mind when describing Princeton's Ivy League record over the last nine years.

Domination.

Over this time frame, the Tigers have lost a total of two games. They have won their last 31 contests and eight of the last nine league titles. Anything less than an Ivy championship would be disappointing for the dominant program.

"We always put pressure on ourselves to win the Ivy league," head coach Bill Tierney said. "We've won 31 straight games and every year we go in hoping to win another six."

This year, though, the Tigers will be facing Ivy opponents who have been coming into their own. As opposed to recent seasons, Princeton is in a league with five other schools among the top 25 in the nation.

"The Ivy part of me is a lot happier that the Ivy league is stronger than it has been in the past, but the Princeton part isn't," Tierney said. "I'd much rather it be like the old days when we were just running through everybody."

And Princeton's first Ivy contest will be tomorrow at Yale. The Elis — much improved from years past — present a variety of obstacles for the visiting Tigers, foremost among them being its midfield and attack, as well as its "personality."

Brian Hunt anchors the Eli offense whihch is beginning to come into its own. Hunt is assisted by midfielder Marko Lujic, Yale's best midfielder.

"The biggest strength of Yale, though, is their personality. They play on an even keel, whether they are winning or losing. They never give up," Tierney said.

Regardless of the Elis' "personality", it will take more from the squad than what it has given the past few years to overpower the Tigers.

Dominant Princeton has demolished Yale in each of the last 10 meetings, the most recent being a 17-5 romp last year.

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The Elis have showed signs of hope so far this season, though, posting a 3-2 record with wins over Lehigh, Colgate and Penn.

Unfortunately for Yale's chances, though, Princeton's record of 4-1 is just a step better. Even more discouraging for the Elis is the disparity between the opponents which they and Princeton have faced. Three of Princeton's four wins came against teams all ranked ahead of Yale's strongest opponent thus far — Cornell, a team to which the Elis lost — while Princeton's only loss came against Syracuse, now ranked No. 2 in the nation.

Many wonder how Princeton will recover from the 14-8 loss to the Orangemen Mar. 24. Having torn through their first two highly ranked opponents, the loss could have left the Tigers demoralized for several games to come. Nevertheless, Princeton seemingly recovered Tuesday en route to a 14-5 victory over Rutgers.

"We're getting over that Syracuse debacle," Tierney said. "I'm not a big fan of the Tuesday night games, but it was probably the right medicine as [the team was] able to go right back onto the field and play somebody different.

"Going into each and every one of those games in March, you feel as though they are loseable games. Losing to Syracuse as we did is falling short of a goal, but if I was told that we would be 4-1 [going into the last weekend of March], I'd take it."

And the Tigers will take it. They will take it with two realizations. One is that, "barring anything miraculous", they have secured an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, according to Tierney. Thus, the pressure is off of them to dominate every Ivy League game. The other realization is that the Tigers are not as concerned with securing that at-large bid as with receiving a good seed in the NCAA Tournament. With that in mind, Princeton acknowledges that it must, once again, dominate the Ancient Eight.