Surprising Yale team to face men's lacrosse in Ivy League opener

Sometimes, things just do not go the way you want them to.

For Yale men's lacrosse, this was supposed to be senior Brian Hunt's year. Last season, he led the league in scoring with 58 points overall and was third nationally with an average of 4.46 points per game.

Unfortunately for him and Yale, things did not go their way, and he broke his ankle and will likely never play college lacrosse again.

Despite the devastating loss, Yale has played surprisingly well this season, and will bring its 3-1 overall record (1-1 Ivy League) and No. 16 national ranking with it to Princeton this Saturday as it takes on the No. 8 Tigers (2-3) at 3 p.m. in 1952 Stadium.

In the last few years, Yale's matchups with Princeton have not gone the way they would like.

Compared to last season, Princeton has been struggling. The Tigers started off 1-3 with the losses against what are now the three highest ranked teams in the nation. With the weak non-Ivy record, the Tigers will not be expecting an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in May, and will be forced to win outright in the Ivy League to have a chance to be around on Memorial Day.

"We play a really tough, condensed early schedule," head coach Bill Tierney said. "Unfortunately, after that, we don't have a chance for a top quality win. We're blessed with the opportunity to have an Ivy League schedule and we've just got to pull it off."

To pull off the Ivy sweep, the Tigers must have a good showing tomorrow afternoon against an Eli team averaging 13 goals per game.

Yale's strength the last couple of years has been on attack. Without the All-American Hunt, though, tomorrow's Yale team loses the dimension of having a player who can take over the game. Instead, Yale is now forced into the situation of having three mortal, yet solid attackmen.

Without Hunt on the field, a couple Elis have stepped up and shown a propensity to score. In only four games, Bulldogs' Matt Scaglione and Scott Kenworthy have combined for 35 points. Yale's competition so far has been relatively weak, but, in any case, two players combining for 8.75 points per game is very impressive.

Thus, the Tiger defense will be going into the game knowing that Yale has players who can score, but Princeton will not yet give anybody the respect Hunt received last year.

"[Hunt] was a great player and they'll miss him," junior defenseman Damien Davis said. "They're more balanced now, so we won't really be able to concentrate on a single player."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Senior captain Scott Farrell mentioned that Hunt's absence will allow the Tigers to rely on the basics of what has become Princeton defense — basic principles such as sliding to create a double-team opportunity and also isolating the right attackmen.

"With a team like them, we just try to follow our general defensive rules," Farrell said. "We try to just play our game. We're just following our rules on defense and don't worry about matchups as much as just sticking with the system."

Yale specializes in scoring goals when other teams get too greedy. A couple times during Yale's 21-11 victory over Sacred Heart, too many Pioneers would be going for the ball when a single Bulldog would win the groundball and hit the open man in front of the goal.

"They score goals in transition, in scrambles, in man-up situations," Tierney said. "They have a nice offense that is patient and willing to take its time. If they see somebody that's open inside, they'll throw it in without regard, and that scares me."

Princeton also knows a secret of how to stop any offense regardless of how good it is, and that is to keep the ball away from the other team by winning faceoffs.

Recently, faceoff middies sophomore Drew Casino and junior Anthony Perna have been playing very well and have been creating scoring opportunities. Although they have won just 56 of 105 faceoffs on the season, they combined for a solid 15 of 26 in Tuesday's victory over Rutgers.

Another way to take Yale's offense out of the picture is to score on its weaker defense.

To counter the potent Tiger offense in the past, the Elis have often tweaked their defense around a bit. In five of the last six years, Yale has stuck a short-stick defenseman on a Tiger attacker to free up two long-sticks to concentrate on the Princeton midfielders.

If Yale uses the same tactic tomorrow, the Elis might move a short-stick on senior attack B.J. Prager, a player who will probably hover the entire game around Yale's goal and will look to receive the ball inside for a quick flick into the net. If he has a short-stick on him, Prager will be given more room to move around and will likely be given more scoring opportunities.

From Yale's perspective, that is the negative side effect. Although this strategy has the obvious drawback of enabling Prager more room to maneuver, it will also hinder the Tiger midfielders with the long-sticks on them when they are trying to dodge a defender.

Yale's defensive tactic has not been effective in the past, and the Tiger offense is confident it will be able to overcome the change tomorrow.

"[The tactic] wouldn't change too much on our side," Prager said. "It would allow me to be more open in the middle. I would hope to get more passes inside that way.

"Its effectiveness depends on our midfielders, and I think it would probably have a minimal effect."

If the Tigers can manage to beat the defensemen and get the ball to Prager inside, tomorrow's game should be yet another episode in which the game does not quite go the way the Elis would like.