Veterans to lead return to national prominence

With 14 returning upperclassman, including most of last year’s starters, the No. 7 Tigers will look to their veterans to lead the way to a record-setting season. These experienced players will be crucial to Princeton’s success during the season and determine its showing in the NCAA Championships.

“It’s been a pretty amazing and exciting preseason because we have a much higher level of teamwork and of potential that I think we’ve had since I’ve been here,” senior midfielder Katie Lewis-Lamonica said. “This year we have a lot of seniors and juniors who have started for a while. We are ready to go.”

Despite an impressive history featuring 11 national semifinal appearances in the last 20 years and an incredible 259-84 record, the Tigers stumbled through last year’s matches. After finishing a mediocre regular season, Princeton’s lackluster play during the first round of the NCAA Championships, combined with its opponent Virginia’s stellar performance, ended in the Tigers’ first failure to reach the quarterfinals since 1998.

“Last season was definitely rough for us,” Lewis-Lamonica said. “We experienced more losses than we have in years. When I came into the program, we had gone to three or four straight NCAA games, so we were definitely humbled by our loss in the first round.”

While Princeton may rely on its veteran players to provide the power during its matches, the Tigers will still need to work out some of last year’s kinks, including creating a more cohesive and consistent team.

“Last year, although we had a winning record, I don’t think we progressed as a team as much as we should have,” head coach Chris Sailer said. “But we aren’t focused on the past except to acknowledge that we want this year to be a different experience.”

Princeton’s top opponent and toughest competitor in the Ivy League is undoubtedly No. 8 Penn, whose dream season took it all the way to the Final Four during the NCAA Championships. The Quakers, though overlooked underdogs whose 2006 season was a mediocre 10-6, surprised everyone with their expert level of play and relentless will to win. While the Tigers’ regular rivals Yale and Dartmouth round out the top 20 lacrosse programs in the nation at Nos. 15 and 17, respectively, Princeton seems to be sitting pretty at No. 7, just ahead of Penn.

Outside of the Ivies, the Tigers face familiar foes, including top-ranked Northwestern, which has won the NCAA Championships the past three years, and No. 2 Virginia, to whom Princeton is looking for revenge. Though Northwestern is not on Princeton’s regular-season schedule, the Wildcats look to be the team to beat in the championships.

Princeton has plenty to prove, and its schedule is stacked with top-ranked competitors. Included on this list is No. 14 Johns Hopkins, whom the Tigers face this weekend in their first match of the season. While Princeton defeated the Blue Jays in sudden-victory overtime last year, Johns Hopkins heads into the match with the advantage of two games already under its belt.

“Hopkins should be tough, strong, physical and fast,” Sailer said. “But they lost their All-American, record-setting scorer, so it will be interesting to see what their success is this year.”

Following that first match, Princeton begins a stretch of home matches against colleges ranked in the top 20, including Duke, James Madison and Virginia. This first round of teams, however, is simply the non-conference matches. The Tigers will face off against Cornell, Columbia and Yale, among others, during their mid-season run against conference competitors.

Additionally, for its final game of the season Princeton will strive to defeat long-time foe and No. 3-ranked Maryland. Though the Tigers have won five of their last six games against the Terrapins, last year they couldn’t seem to stop Maryland’s offense, losing 13-12 in overtime. The Terrapins’ roster is even more packed with experienced players than Princeton’s and includes 10 seniors, one of whom is the 2007 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the year. Maryland will be undoubtedly be a tough finish to the season.

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“We are really excited for this year,” Sailer said. “Our goal is to get back into the Final Four. We are hungry to win, looking to improve and could have the chemistry that it takes to have an incredible season.”

This hunger to win could be what separates the Tigers from the rest, and with a talented squad including seven of last season’s top eight scorers returning, give them back their powerhouse status.