Men's lacrosse falters against Hopkins

BALTIMORE — The preseason reports were grim. The Princeton men's lacrosse team had a few rough scrimmages and the flow at practice did not seem to be as smooth as it was for last year's national championship winning team. Those grim reports were confirmed to be true in the Tigers' 8-5 loss at Johns Hopkins on Saturday.

Before the weekend, Tierney reported that the attack did not seem to have it together. The players were not finding each other in the crease.

Those offensive woes continued on Saturday. The power trio of All-America attackmen senior B.J. Prager, junior Sean Hartofilis, and sophomore Ryan Boyle combined for only one of Princeton's five goals, that being Boyle's goal near the end of the game to continue his streak of having recorded a point in every contest of his college career.

Another Tiger weakness was the team's inability to win the groundballs. Princeton had the same problem last year at home against Johns Hopkins, winning just 27 of 64. This year's percentage was worse, winning just 23 out of the 66 loose balls.

The Tigers played poorly for the first 30 minutes, but were down only 2-1 at the half. The Blue Jays had two goals by Harrison and Barrie to Princeton's lone goal by senior midfielder Mark Pellegrino.

Despite playing poorly, the Tigers outshot the Blue Jays in the first half, 16-14. Where Princeton fell behind, though, was gaining control of the faceoff. The blame on the faceoff did not seem to belong to sophomore faceoff specialist Drew Casino, but instead on the wings rushing in. Casino often pushed over the Hopkins faceoff man only to see the Blue Jay wing run away with the ball.

The second half was more even as far as faceoffs are concerned. Several times, though, the Tigers seemed unable to execute elementary pass-and-catch sequences. In a close succession of plays, Hartofilis and junior midfielder Brad Dumont both dropped passes that led to turnovers or ended an attack. On another play, junior midfielder Owen Daly threw the ball away in transition. Those are three of the most solid players in the country making bad mistakes at bad times. "You know, they were the team with the freshmen starting and we were the team with all the experience," Tierney said. "But we played out there as though we were the freshmen and they were the experienced team."

The third quarter started with a Hopkins offensive explosion. The Blue Jays built up a 5-2 lead going into the final 15 minutes.

The first goal of the half was scored when Kevin Boland beat the Princeton defender on the side of the goal and then found teammate Matt Hanna just outside the net. Daly scored the first Tiger goal of the period soon thereafter with 10 minutes, 15 seconds on the clock. His goal was marked by solid perimeter movement by the Tiger offense. The final two Blue Jay goals of the third quarter were scored in man-up situations.

The start of the fourth quarter was a continuation of Johns Hopkins dominance. The Blue Jays scored two goals in the beginning of the quarter to build a daunting 7-2 lead with seven minutes to go.

Although the Tigers looked nothing like last season's championship squad in the first 53 minutes, they did in the last seven, cutting the lead to 7-5 with 58 seconds left in the game. Princeton should have never forced itself into such a position, but the play in the last seven minutes bodes well for the future of a team that fully plans on playing for the championship.

"Oh yeah, we'll be back after this," junior defenseman Damien Davis said. "We're not worried at all."