Question & Answer with Ryan Boyle and Sean Hartofilis

Recently, 'Prince' senior writer Zack Faigen sat down with men's lacrosse's dynamic duo of attackmen senior Sean Hartofilis and junior Ryan Boyle.

Prince: Lacrosse isn't exactly the most popular sport yet. How did you two get into it as opposed to some other sport?

Sean Hartofilis: The thing about lacrosse is that you can go to some of the better academic schools. You have the opportunity to go to Princeton, which is obviously one of the best academic schools. And it's also competitive so you can play on a great Division-I NCAA team. It's not like we can go on and play professional lacrosse.

Ryan Boyle: It's the same reason for me, but going back farther, I played just cause my older brothers played. You see what they're doing and say, 'that looks pretty cool.' You just pick it up from there.

P: At what point did you know that you wanted to, and could, play college lacrosse?

SH: Well, if you're one of the better players in high school or junior high, and you stick with it, you'll be able to go to a Division I school. I wanted to go to Princeton the whole time, and if you play well and get seen you can go to a good school.

RB: I definitely agree. When you start playing well in high school you realize that you can go to a good school. Ever since my freshman year, I didn't see myself anywhere but here.

P: You are now at the point where a large population recognizes the names Hartofilis and Boyle. If you can take a step back from it all, how does that feel?

RB: It's fun. We're playing anyway, we might as well do it at a high level. And it comes from just playing together. I don't think either one of us could do it on our own.

SH: It's good that people hopefully know you because you're doing well. Just like Ryan said, I play well if he gets a bunch of assists. One goes along with the other.

P: Statistically, you are playing better now than ever before. Ryan, you lead the country in points and assists, and Sean, you lead the country in goals. What's different now?

SH: We're the older guys on the team now. We used to be able to rely on just throwing it in to B.J. [Prager '02] and we had some older middies. Now, we have to score a little more to make up for that I guess.

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

[At this point in the interview, Boyle took a phone call from his sister who was experiencing car trouble in Philadelphia] RB: Sorry about that. As far as why we've done better this year, I think not only as we've gotten older we've been more relied on, I think coach Metz has a much better understanding of guys' talents and where to put those talents. So much of our team is based on playing within a system and so it takes a while to grasp the system. Different guys grasp it at different stages and now we've got the whole group of guys that know what the others are doing. And for Sean and me it's our third year and I know not only where he'll be all the time, but I know what he's thinking. I guess it's just a comfort level, you could say.

P: Ryan, do you as a junior feel a sense of urgency knowing that you will lose Sean and so many other seniors after the season?

RB: Definitely. Just the fact that they're so talented and they're also some of my best friends, it's fun playing with them. I'm gonna miss them next year not only on the field but more so off the field. There's a sense of urgency not only to win, but just to be with them as much as I can.

[P: To the outside observer, coach Tierney has two sides: the calm guy we see in interviews and the intense screamer we see on the field. Which is the real Bill Tierney?

SH: I think you have to say he's the guy he is off the field. He definitely gets intense and I think that has a lot to do with how much success he's had. But he's more of a calm guy.

RB: There are both sides to him. Off the field he is real calm. But once you get him in competition, this different side of his personality comes out. He's a really intense guy with the officials, the players, the other coaches, everybody. I guess that's just his outlet, you could say.]

P: Who do you think has been the MVP for the team thus far this season?

RB: [long pause] That's hard. It could be a bunch of different guys. We play such a team game. [Junior defender] Damien [Davis] has just destroyed everyone he's played against.

SH: Certain guys have just bailed us out this year. [Senior goalie] Julian [Gould] has made some huge saves for us.

RB: Oliver Barry is probably the most underrated player on our team, if not the country. The guy goes from playing long-stick defenseman when we had an absence of any short-stick midfielders, steps in and starts and is playing unbelievably. Then [junior defender] Ricky Schultz gets injured and he goes back to playing long-stick and shuts [Cornell attack Sean] Greenhalgh, rookie of the year, down to one goal. It's ridiculous. He's so versatile. He's been so invaluable. Without him I don't know what we're doing.

P: There is a general feeling that lacrosse players at Princeton get all the girls. Your thoughts on that?

SH: I don't think that's true.

RB: I wish that were the case.

SH: You'd like to think that. I think maybe we thought that coming in here. I don't think at Princeton we have an upper hand as far as girls are concerned. I think it's very case-by-case. If people think that, they're either doing very poorly or have the wrong idea.

RB: I definitely thought that coming in. You were the man in high school, and now it's like 'man, what happened?'

P: You think sportswriters will ever take over that top spot with the ladies?

RB: You guys are probably doing better than us now.

P: Well we do have some studs.