Men's lax picks up pair of wins, one at home one on the road

While the majority of Princeton students spent last week sun tanning or skiing, the men's lacrosse team found itself hard at work breaking some streaks and extending others.

On Saturday Princeton's 10-5 win against Hofstra extended its dominance over the Pride to seven straight wins since 1991.

The weekend before, the Tigers traveled to Charlottesville, VA determined to break their decade-long losing spell on Cavalier turf. On that day, Princeton's good fortune was Virginia's demise as the 8-7 Tiger victory extended the Cavaliers' losing skid to four games. The four-game slide plummets the Cavaliers' record to 1-4, their worst season start since 1966 (0-5) and their longest winning dry-spell since 1987.

"After the Hopkins game we realized that there were some things we needed to sharpen," sophomore goalie Dave Law said. "We worked really hard that week to go into Saturday's game and it worked out for us. The biggest thing from my standpoint is that we came into Virginia more confident."

Indeed, Princeton took to Virginia the poise and composure it had lacked a week earlier in the 14-5 Johns Hopkins trouncing.

Law was a key contributor to the win. His performance in net neutralized the Cavaliers' offense, which was led by the high-scoring trio of Johnny Christmas, Joe Yevoli, and Matt Ward. Law's career-high 15-saves maintained the shaky lead. He stopped a low shot by Ward on a restart with 14.2 seconds left.

Law's outstanding defensive effort earned him the title of Ivy Men's Lacrosse Co-Player of the Week.

The Tiger offense was strong across the board with good showings from sophomore midfielders Ryan Schoenig and Mac Bryson.

In addition to the consistently strong offensive duo of junior attack Jason Doneger and senior attack Ryan Boyle, who tallied a goal each, Bryson had a two-goal performance sneaking in a shot eight seconds before halftime and another a minute before the end of the third quarter.

Also chipping in a pair of goals was senior midfielder Drew Casino.

Although the Tigers' main concern this season has been the smooth integration of the 13-deep freshman class, the rookies showed great progress with strong offensive performances coming from attacks Whitney Hayes, Peter Trombino, and Scott Sowanick.

"From day one the chemistry has been great," Law said. "They've really meshed into our system well."

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Coming into the season as incumbent National Champs with many predicting a repeat, the Cavaliers have been falling short of everyone's expectations. Their slump, however, is not anything for the Tigers to become complacent about.

Although they might have had an off day, Virginia never let the Tigers go ahead by more than two goals.

Coming off the Virginia win had Princeton more than prepared to take on Hofstra (2-3) last Saturday. The Tigers jumped to a 3-0 lead six minutes into the game.

Doneger began the scoring with a low shot from the crease for the first of a three-goal outing. The freshmen then continued the charge with Hayes capitalizing on a pass by Trombino at 10:37. Dissatisfied with just an assist, Trombino followed Hayes' lead a minute later by putting away a pass from Boyle 10 yards out.

The Tigers slacked off in the second quarter as poor passing made it difficult to create good opportunities.

"I thought we started off strong, but midway through the second quarter we let the tempo slow down," Boyle said. "We lost some of our flow offensively. We threw some balls away. We just weren't crisp."

Despite some hangups, the Tigers were able to close the period with a comfortable 5-2 lead.

Sound defending helped keep the Princeton lead with Law sharing net time with junior Matt Larkin. Also helping out in the back was freshman defender Zach Jungers who led the team with five ground balls.

The wins should be good confidence builders for the Tigers who will have their work cut out on Saturday against Syracuse.