Big Cleats to Fill

During his storied career on the men's lacrosse team, Ryan Boyle '04 was a player of uncommon skill, even on Princeton's high-caliber team. As an attack, he practically singlehandedly beat Maryland to advance the Tigers to the NCAA tournament semifinals last year. Boyle was a first team All-American, an Ivy League Rookie of the Year and a two-time Ivy League Player of the year — an offensive mastermind extraordinaire. In short, he was one of the best players ever to play at Princeton.

"Ryan was a coach on the field," head coach Bill Tierney said. "He became the conductor of the orchestra out there."

So how do you replace a player like Boyle?

Enter senior attack Jason Doneger. Already one of the team's strongest players, Doneger is now charged with elevating his game to Boyle's level and leading the young Tiger offense this season.

Doneger's task, with the help of fellow starting sophomore attackmen Peter Trombino and Scott Sowanick, will be to help lead the offense in much the same capacity as Boyle did. As the point man of the offense, Boyle took on the responsibility of directing Princeton's attack.

"[Last year], we knew the offense was going to start with him," Doneger said, adding that Boyle was "the one particular guy that generated all the offense."

In addition to his other skills, Boyle was known for being a master feeder, which suited Doneger especially well when the two played together.

"I think Ryan and I complemented each other really well," Doneger said. "He was always trying to find the open guy to put the ball in the net, and I generally, fortunately, was on the receiving end of that."

Indeed, for much of his time at Princeton, Doneger has primarily been an off-ball player, making cuts and looking to get open to catch a pass from a teammate and then redirect it towards the net.

This year, the division between feeders and shooters will be a bit more blurred. According to Doneger, Trombino will carry the ball more than he did last year, as will Sowanick.

"The bottom line is, without Ryan here, our attack is going to be a little more balanced," Doneger said.

He will carry the ball more than in previous seasons as well, a task he is not used to but has been preparing for intensely. Noting that "the ball's not going to be in any of our three attackmen's sticks as much as it was in [Boyle's]," Doneger said he prepared for his new role in the off-season by working on his on-ball play and practicing his ball-handling skills.

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

Tierney explained that Doneger's primary responsibility would be to take on the leadership role Boyle used to occupy.

"Jason is going to take over that role of being the conductor," Tierney said. "He's going to be the one who settles things down, who tells these young guys out there that it's time to settle down or it's time to get going."

To be sure, leadership is just one of many elements that Doneger will provide the team with now that Boyle is gone.

"For all of [Boyle's] strengths as a feeder there were a lot of intangibles that separated him [from the rest]," Doneger said.

Besides being a brilliant feeder and offensive player in general, Boyle was also an emotional leader of the Princeton team, a role Doneger will have to fully assume now that he no longer has Boyle as his co-captain.

"Over the past few years, last year especially, our team was very young," Doneger said. "Although I was a junior, I felt that it was a shared responsibility with Ryan as a co-captain to transcend the emotion throughout the entire team, so I felt I had to step up in that role. Now that Ryan's gone, it's kind of the same thing."

Given the Tigers' youth — Doneger will play alongside two sophomores on the starting line of attack — leadership will be especially important. Tierney calls Doneger the team's "elder statesman."

Moreover, as Tierney noted, Doneger is well respected by his teammates, which has helped to make both the transition in offensive strategy and the adjustment to life without Boyle a bit easier. Then again, Tierney said it is hard to truly tell how the offense was adjusting, having played only scrimmages so far.

"I'm not even sure if we're really even close yet," he said.

Ready or not, Princeton opens its season against No. 1 Johns Hopkins on Saturday afternoon at Class of 1952 Stadium at 3 p.m. The Blue Jays will be a formidable opponent, and Doneger will square off against talented senior defender Chris Watson, the "quarterback" of the Hopkins defense.

"I don't think there's anyone out there that would pick us to beat Hopkins, and I kind of like that," Doneger said.

He'd like it even more to prove them wrong.