Last year, men's lacrosse traveled to Brown on the last weekend of the regular season needing a win to clinch the Ivy title and get into the NCAA tournament. They left with an exciting 15-13 win.
History repeated itself Saturday at Class of 1952 Stadium, only this time Brown came down to Princeton looking to foil the Tigers' postseason plans. Once again Princeton emerged victorious, this time with a much more comfortable 11-3 win.
Tournament outlook
With the triumph, Princeton won a piece of the Ivy title. They share that honor with Cornell and Dartmouth, who beat Harvard, 5-4, Friday night.
Dartmouth (11-2 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) received the Ivy League automatic qualifying bid and will face defending national champion Syracuse (8-5) in the Carrier Dome. Princeton (10-3, 5-1) was awarded the No. 4 seed and will play host to Albany (10-5) on May 10.
Against Brown, Princeton came out focused and quickly went about its business in the last Ivy League game for the senior on the team.
It was only fitting that, with, it being senior day, it was the seniors who led the charge. Midfielder Josh White scored a goal while adding two assists. Attackman Sean Hartofilis scored four goals in the game, his last one giving him sole possession of third place on the all-time Princeton goalscoring list with 121.
"[The game] was very businesslike," head coach Bill Tierney said. When asked about the mood in practice during the week, he said, "[the mood] was very somber and it felt like there was a lot of determination."
Setting the record
Princeton got on the board first just one minute, 47 seconds into the first quarter. While on a man-up opportunity, junior captain and attackman Ryan Boyle held the ball behind the net. He found senior midfielder Brad Dumont wide open on the left side of the net. Dumont took the feed, took two steps towards the net and fired a bullet past the keeper.
There was no looking back from there. Boyle set up the Tigers next goal on another man-up chance. He again had the ball behind the net, only he was unguarded. Boyle and sophomore attackman Jason Doneger played catch until Doneger ripped a shot in the upper left right corner.
Boyle finished the game with five assists, giving him 32 assists during the Ivy season, a league record.
Doneger finished the game with three goals. He added another in the second quarter to make the score 4-1 in favor of Princeton, and finally his third with 7:25 left in the game to make the score 10-2. Hartofilis added two goals before halftime that gave the Tigers a comfortable 6-1 lead going into the half. His first was a wonderful individual effort. He began with the ball about 30 meters away from the goal and began to drive right, before being cut off. He then reversed direction with a quick spin, went left and, as soon as he saw an opening, bounced a shot into the net.
Dumont added his second goal two and a half minutes into the second half. Boyle set up Dumont right on the doorstep, and he made no mistakes once he had the ball.
Sophomore midfielder Mac Bryson, seeing extra playing time because of the injury to senior Owen Daly, converted a man-up opportunity with the assist going to Dumont.
Daly and junior midfielder Drew Casino both missed Saturday's game because of injury.
Rebounding
On the defensive end, Princeton applied enormous pressure to the Brown attack all game long. The Tigers forced lots of turnovers and never let the Bears get anything going.
This was just fine for senior goaltender Julian Gould. He was coming off one of the worst performances of his career, but rebounded with a solid 12-save effort.
"I was really worried about [Gould]," Tierney said. "One thing about him is that he never has two bad games in a row."
Much of the credit goes to the Tigers' defenders.
"I play behind the best defensemen in the country," Gould said. "They make it easy to get off to good starts."
The Tigers now turn their focus to the NCAA tournament where they will host Albany in the first round.
Princeton is looking for their second national title in three years.
"It's do or die every game now," Tierney said.
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