Tigers upset fourth ranked Hopkins

It looked, for a time, as though Princeton's men's lacrosse team might not be able to get by the No. 4 Blue Jays (1-1 overall) — literally.

But despite the outstanding play of Johns Hopkins' goalie Jesse Schwartzman, the No. 9 Tigers (2-0) broke through a 2-2 halftime tie and shot their way past last year's national champion en route to a tense 6-4 win. The game snapped Hopkins' 17-game winning streak and their 37-game home field winning streak.

Though freshman midfielder Mark Kovler gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead with a goal just 47 seconds into the game, Schwartzman proceeded to stuff the Tigers time and again for the next twenty minutes. Princeton outshot the Blue Jays 20-10 in the first half, yet only played the first 30 minutes to a tie as very few of the Tigers' shots on goal got past Schwartzman.

"[It] can be a little disconcerting," head coach Bill Tierney said of Schwartzman's play. "You can go one of two ways there: you can get angry or you can just keep shooting, and in the second half [attackman] Peter Trombino opened us up with a couple of big high shots."

The Tigers kept shooting, matching their twelve shots in the second quarter with another dozen in the third quarter. Though Hopkins went up 3-2 with a goal at 9:28 into the third, the Tigers kept blasting away and opened up a three-goal advantage heading into the final quarter.

Soon after taking their one-goal lead, the Blue Jays had a dangerous man-up opportunity that they couldn't capitalize on. With that threat past them, the Tigers went on the attack.

Trombino strikes

Thanks to an assist from junior midfielder Whitney Hayes, Trombino began the scoring run with a low-to-high shot that found its way past Schwartzman to tie the score at three with 5:31 left in the third.

Trombino, though, wasn't finished. He scored again less than two minutes later on an assist from Kovler, a play which brought some critical momentum back to the Tigers as they took the 4-3 lead.

"Once you get to a goalie, you have a better chance of breaking him down," Tierney said.

Through Schwartzman's 14-save game wasn't exactly a total meltdown, the Tigers figured out that they had to shoot high and found Schwartzmn's weak spot, one that would be enough to win the game.

Sophomore attack Trip Cowin gave Princeton a commanding 5-3 lead as he dashed unassisted across the crease and put one over Schwartzman's offside shoulder with 1:19 remaining in the third quarter.

Finally, a few minutes into the fourth quarter, freshman midfielder Josh Lesko caught the ball from Trombino's hot stick and found the back of the net for the Tigers' sixth and final goal. A man-up score by Hopkins with about 11 minutes left in regulation would yield the final 6-4 score.

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For that last ten minutes, it was all sophomore goalie Alex Hewit's time to shine. Though he let in two goals before making any saves at the start of the game, Hewit stopped the ball when it counted most; he blocked four shots in the fourth quarter en route to a solid seven-save performance.

In fact, a save by Hewit had led directly to Lesko's goal, the team's sixth. Later on, Hewit made a key save with 3:34 to play to keep the Blue Jays at a comfortable distance. He was able to do what Schwartzman never really had the opportunity to do by helping his team protect a lead.

Hewit's defense, too, played brilliantly. Junior defenseman John Bennett stopped the Blue Jays cold time and again when Schwartzman would make saves and start a clear, particularly in the first half.

And in dramatic fashion, sophomore defenseman Dan Cocoziello dove headfirst for a ball as it went out of bounds off a blocked shot, gaining possession for the Tigers and putting the nail in the Blue Jays' coffin as the clock slipped under half a minute remaining in regulation.

"I thought the kids played with a lot of confidence and very aggressively," Tierney said. "To hold them to four goals, we really feel like we put in a good defensive effort."

There weren't many weak spots to Princeton's game on Saturday. Though they won three fewer face-offs than Johns Hopkins and scooped up nine fewer ground balls, the Tigers also successfully cleared the ball 21 of 25 times.

But the Tigers might have a problem. Shortly before their third quarter three-goal burst, junior midfielder Mike Gaudio went down with a knee injury and spent the remainder of the game with ice and crutches on the sideline.

Though his status will not be clear until after an MRI on Monday, Tierney and the team hope it is just a sprain or minor ligament injury.

"That would be a big loss for us," Tierney said. Though this year's team is deep, Gaudio is a key starter for the Tigers. He had one goal against the Blue Jays on Saturday before being sidelined.

With or without him, though, the Tigers will look to get past the Virginia Cavaliers this coming Sunday, who beat Syracuse 20-15 this weekend. After their win against Hopkins, though, the Tigers are looking strong in the mix-up of teams playing at the pinnacle of collegiate lacrosse.