No. 13 Princeton (7-5 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) will need to win tomorrow’s road matchup against No. 14 Brown (10-3, 4-1) to qualify for the Ivy League’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Also holding a vested interest in the outcome of this game is No. 9 Cornell. Currently atop the Ivy League rankings, the Big Red (10-3, 5-1) will earn a ticket to the big dance with a Brown victory. If Princeton prevails, however, the Tigers will be tied with the Big Red with a 5-1 league record and will win the tournament bid on the shoulders of their victory over Cornell two weeks ago.
And so a season marked by spectacular plays, crushing defeats and devastating injuries has arrived at its inevitable do-or-die finale.
“It’s win or go home at this point,” head coach Bill Tierney said. “I told the kids it’s like we’re in the tournament already.”
Just to add icing to the cake, the winner of this weekend’s game will become Ivy League co-champions with Cornell, regardless of which team advances to the NCAA tournament.
To say a win is vital hardly does justice to the importance of the upcoming contest, to the coaches and the players.
“So far this season, the kids have been great at handling this sort of pressure. What they haven’t handled well is success,” Tierney said. “This year, the kids have bounced back and responded tremendously following poor performances … We’ve had a consistent pattern of good games followed by awful ones this season, and we’re certainly hoping that the fact that we didn’t play very well last week against Dartmouth will turn this weekend’s game into a better performance.”
History seems to favor Princeton in this epic showdown. The Tigers have won the last 14 meetings between these two schools, though the margins of victory have been miniscule. Last year, Princeton edged out the Bears with an 8-7 victory at home in Class of 1952 Stadium, and in 2006, the Tigers eked out another one-goal margin in their 6-5 win in Providence. This year, Princeton will have to pull out another important victory on foreign turf.
“I think the toughest challenge against Brown will be playing well away from Princeton. This season, it seems that where we’re playing, even more than who we’re playing, has been a deciding factor,” freshman midfielder Connor Reilly said. “That being said, just knowing what’s on the line [in] this game should be plenty of motivation for us to play well from the start.”
With a 1-4 record on the road this season, Princeton will have to look for some way to get on the board early and attack from the opening whistle. That intensity will hopefully come from a week of solid practices.
“We have to do everything we can to prepare mentally and physically for a tough team that’s in a similar situation as we’re in,” junior midfielder Josh Lesko said. “I think everybody’s ready to rebound from the disappointing Dartmouth game and come out strong from the start against Brown.”
Defense will be the key to the game for both teams. This season, the Tigers are 7-0 when allowing fewer than 10 goals and 0-5 when the opponent has reached double digits. Brown has averaged 8.69 goals per game this season. The Princeton D line will have its work cut out, with two 20-goal scorers on the Bears’ roster, including junior Kyle Hollingsworth, who netted four goals last week against Cornell.
Likewise, the Bears’ defense will present a problem for Princeton. The No. 6-ranked scoring defense in the nation has caused Tierney to unambiguously label “scoring goals” as the biggest challenge in this weekend’s game.
“Brown has some great players, and we’ll need to make plays like we did against Cornell. Their goalie has also been playing very well this year, and as a team, we shot poorly last weekend, so we’ll definitely have to improve upon that,” senior attack and tri-captain Bob Schneider said.
Ankle injuries to junior midfielders Mark Kovler and Rich Sgalardi, who have combined for 29 points on the season, severely hinder Princeton’s offensive production heading into the final stretch of the season. But heroic efforts like Schneider’s four-goal game against Harvard and his and junior attack Tommy Davis’ hat tricks against Cornell have kept the Tigers’ postseason hopes alive, so maybe a comeback story is still in the making.
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