Just as the men's football team traveled to Dartmouth this fall to take on the Big Green, the men's lacrosse team will do the same this weekend. Moreover, just as the football team expected to win against the cellar dwellers, so will lacrosse.
It appears as though the Princeton lacrosse team has finally returned to its winning ways and is currently riding on top of a four-game winning streak with just Dartmouth and Brown left to play in the regular season. After that comes the NCAA tournament.
Such is not the case for Dartmouth. The team from the frozen North has won one of its last five games, that one game being against perennial weakling Vermont.
Moreover, the last time Dartmouth beat the Tigers was in 1988, when many of the Big Green current players were starting elementary school. Since then, the Tigers have won 13 straight by the average score of 17.1-5.5.
Even if the press is always looking ahead, though, the Tigers know that they have to think about one game at a time. They know that Dartmouth can beat them if the Big Green are ready to play and the Big Orange are not.
"I think we just need to fight the tendency to overlook them," senior defender Scott Farrell said. "We need to view them as a viable opponent."
So far this season, Dartmouth has played like a second tier team that has not demonstrated a strong ability to beat good teams. Although most of the games were relatively close, the Big Green have lost all five matches against top 20 teams. Furthermore, their victories against teams outside of the top 20 have mostly been by only a few goals. Again, this game should be over very quickly.
On attack, Dartmouth is an unselfish team without anybody with large name recognition.
"They're all unselfish, work the ball around," Farrell said. "They don't have any superstars. They play hard."
Although they do not have any considerably great players, they do have two attackmen to watch out for — namely Scott Roslyn and Connor Price. Last year, Price led his team with 14 goals and nine assists and posted an eight game scoring streak in the middle of the year.
In Dartmouth's last game, a 15-10 victory over Vermont, Roslyn scored five goals, a respectable total even if against a weaker team. For tomorrow's match-up, the Big Green should aim to score at least eight goals and hope that a miracle happens on the other end of the field.
Dartmouth's defense, anchored by Anatole Wedmid and Wes Lippman, has given up about nine goals per game in 11 games.
On offense, the Tigers will likely stick to their normal gameplan of working the ball around, taking their time, and, when they have their chance, attacking the goal hard.
"I think that they will try to slide pretty fast from the short-stick," junior midfielder Brad Dumont said. "Our game plan is to do our thing."
If they play like they did on Saturday against Cornell, the Tigers should be able to do "their thing."
But, Cornell was emotionally draining on the team. It was a big game, and the Tigers had to step up. Earlier in practice this week, Princeton was not playing like it should have been.
"We've been a little rough in practice this week," Dumont said. "Last week took a lot out of us."
Dumont went on to say that the team now seems to be ready to play a few more games of top lacrosse. The safe bets are on Princeton this weekend.
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