Men's lacrosse seeded No. 2 in NCAAs

The Tiger lacrosse team reported that during practice last week, it had difficulty focusing on Saturday's meeting with Hobart because of the ensuing NCAA Championships. After all, Hobart (5-7) has been playing nowhere near the caliber which it had been in years past and was rightfully viewed as a pushover by the No. 1 Tigers.

"We had a rough couple of days," sophomore attackman Sean Hartofilis said. "We just had to come in and realize that we were still playing."

Princeton (11-1) refocused its efforts and took advantage of the Statesmen's weaknesses, coming away from this last regular season game with a 16-7 victory.

The meeting started with Princeton playing well and scoring at will, tallying seven goals by the end of the first quarter. The Tigers used a combination of formation changes and quick passing to either give junior attackman B.J. Prager the ball underneath or get it to Hartofilis to rip a shot from 30 feet out.

The highlight of the day was Prager setting a personal best by scoring eight goals on the hapless Hobart defense. Even more impressive is that the junior scored those goals in three quarters of playing time and on only 10 shots.

"You don't score that many goals unless you're a special player," head coach Bill Tierney said.

To score, Prager was able to continually lose his defender near the Hobart goal, receive a pass, and quickly flick the ball into the net.

"Eight goals was a pretty amazing feeling," Prager said. "When I score goals, it means that everybody is playing well and they're working the ball around."

The Tiger momentum continued into the second quarter and scored five more goals to Hobart's two to give Princeton a 12-2 lead at halftime.

"I was concerned about the way we practiced," Tierney said. "I was worried about coming out strong today. I have to give credit to the kids to be up 12-2 at the half."

The second half was an anti-climatic ending to an exciting season. Because of Princeton's insurmountable lead, the game was virtually decided. With the victory secured, Tierney placed most of the starters on the bench to prevent injuries and also experimented with new formations and different personnel.

Regardless of the experiments, Princeton maintained control of the game through the third quarter, sending it into the final period with a 15-2 lead.

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Hobart then quickly scored two goals in the beginning of the fourth before senior defender Ryan Mollett scored the goal of the game. Mollett picked up the ball in transition and took it the length of the field, beating all defenders, and dropped it into the net to beat the goalie from point-blank range.

That marked the last goal Princeton would score on the day. The game and the regular season ended a few minutes later, but not until the Statesmen scored three more goals to come away with a respectable 16-7 defeat.

And that game set the stage for last night's selection show, in which Princeton was surprisingly given the No. 2 seed behind Syracuse. Going into the weekend, many thought that, if Princeton won its game against Hobart, it would be guaranteed the one seed. That was before Syracuse tore through No. 3 Georgetown 19-9 on Saturday. With that win, the committee decided that Syracuse should be given the higher seed. As a result, Princeton will play the winner of Loyola and Georgetown in the quarterfinals. The Tigers do not seem to be upset, but will instead use it as a rallying cry in the upcoming practices.

"I think it's a pretty fair draw considering what happened in the season," junior defender Scott Farrell said. "They can put us where they want, we just have to play our game on the field."

"There's always motivation that comes out of these things when you don't get what you think you're going to," Tierney said. "Everybody's so even this year, that being the number one seed wouldn't make any of a difference."

All it means is that if we run the table and Syracuse runs the table, we'll be playing them in the finals."

Should that happen and Princeton meets the Orangemen, most would pick Syracuse because they beat Princeton 14-8 March 24, but senior midfielder Matt Bailer would differ with the Orangemen's reputed strength.

"Syracuse University is nothing but a shirt with mesh on it."