Tiger defense to face strong UMBC offense in return to tournament

Though last year's Tigers found themselves rudely cut in upon, this year's men's lacrosse team is right back in the dance.

The Tigers (10-4 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) have overcome their one-year postseason hiatus and will once again take part in the NCAA Tournament this Saturday against the University of Maryland – Baltimore County (10-4).

"It's great to be back in the playoffs," head coach Bill Tierney said. "I think we got to a point in our program of being there 15 straight years that maybe we took [postseason play] for granted, [but] I know that this team didn't."

Indeed, Princeton's 10-4 overall record and Ivy League championship, which they share with Cornell, hint at a much stronger season than last year's dismal 5-7 affair. Thanks to their comparatively strong play this year, including a so-called "quality" win over Johns Hopkins earlier this season that Princeton so sorely lacked last season, the Tigers earned an at-large bid and a No. 7 seed.

In previous years, strong Tiger squads well on their way to national championships might have faced fairly soft opponents in the first round of the tournament. But this year won't be quite the same.

Princeton's game against UMBC will be every bit a challenge.

"[UMBC] is a team that has an attack that's as good as 99 percent of the teams in the country," Tierney said. "Their first six offensive guys are all dangerous and they're a team that can score goals."

The Retrievers will come to Princeton off a strong 19-10 defeat of Albany, which earned them the America East conference title and with it an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The appearance is the team's first since 1999.

The game wasn't a high-scoring fluke, either: UMBC has scored in double-digits in five of their last six games, including a 20-9 shootout against Stony Brook. The team's offense features a full six players who have scored 17 or more goals so far this season.

Attackman Brendan Mundorf leads his squad with 27 goals on the season and a .351 scoring percentage; he's closely followed by fellow attackman Drew Westervelt, who has scored 26 for the Retrievers this season off a .310 percentage.

What's harder to put into numbers, though, is exactly how strong the Tiger defense is this season. From sophomore defenseman Dan Cocoziello through junior defenseman Zach Jungers and senior defenseman Ryan Schoenig, the Tiger defense has been formidable.

But if Princeton needs any reassurance beyond that lineup, NCAA-leading sophomore goaltender Alex Hewit's numbers might help — he's racked up a .658 save percentage. It seems that Princeton's defense will be well-prepared for UMBC's attack.

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"What's out there is that UMBC's strength and Princeton's strength are going to be at the same end of the field — you might have this chess matchup of their offense against our defense," Tierney said.

It'll be exactly that because, this far along in the season, there are few secrets that any coach has left to throw in. Tierney emphasized that he wanted his players to play the game as it came to them, noting that he did not want his team to feel any of the stress that might have caused them to underperform last weekend in a close victory against Brown.

"This week we're not going to lay on the pressure. I've already told them how proud I am of them," Tierney said. "If we get beat by their team, we do, but I have all the confidence in the world that we could win this thing — or win it all."

Should the Tigers get by UMBC, they'll likely face No. 2-seeded University of Maryland in the second round of play. The Terrapins pose an even larger challenge, having maintained a ranking ahead of the Tigers in the Inside Lacrosse media poll for most of this season.

Meanwhile, at the top of the 16-team bracket lie the indomitable Virginia Cavaliers, the only undefeated team in the tournament.

"Not in a long time, maybe since 1990 when Syracuse had the great team of the Gaits as seniors, has a team dominated Division I lacrosse like Virginia has this year," Tierney said, alluding to the most famous brothers to ever play collegiate lacrosse.

Given each team's placement in the bracket, Princeton could only possibly see Virginia in a national championship game at this point. Until then, with UMBC the first challenge up for Princeton, the Tigers will be dancing one step at a time.