Princeton (6-4 overall, 3-0 CWPA Southern Division) will travel to Malibu, Calif., this weekend for the annual SoCal Tournament co-hosted by Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount. With 14 of the top 16 teams in the nation in contention for tournament honors, the Tigers will get a chance at a final tune-up before entering the regular season, when the Tigers hope to earn a berth in the NCAA tournament.
Warmup
Before entering tournament play Saturday morning, Princeton will square off against No. 1 USC (12-0) on Friday afternoon at the McDonald’s Swim Stadium, where the Trojans currently have a 29-game, three-year winning streak. The Tigers, hoping to extend their own five-game winning streak, will have to play perfect defense to have a chance at toppling the nation’s top-ranked offensive unit.
Sophomore goalkeeper Mike Merlone, who was just named CWPA Southern Division Player of the Week, will be the defensive backbone for Princeton this weekend. Merlone has been solid between the pipes this season, notching 40 saves in the last three games and averaging 10.8 saves per game so far this year.
Offensively, the Tigers are currently led by a potent scoring trio. Junior utility Mark Zalewski has tallied a team-leading 17 goals, followed closely by junior utility Eric Vreeland’s 15 goals and junior driver Douglas Wigley’s 14.
Rematch
Princeton kicks off the tournament Saturday morning with a rematch against No. 3 Stanford (10-1), who routed the Tigers 12-2 earlier this season. In their last meeting, Princeton held strong in the first period, keeping its deficit to 1-0, but then faltered in the second and third, letting in four and five goals, respectively. Critical to the Tigers’ success in the first period was a strong defense that challenged the Cardinal in all areas of the pool.
Stanford juniors Drac and Janson Wigo each had hat tricks in the match against Princeton and presently lead the Cardinal in goals scored with 26 and 25, respectively. Redshirt junior goalie Jimmie Sandman leads all starting goalies in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation with a 3.5 goals-against average.
The competition
The Tigers are joined by Stanford, No. 11 Pacific (8-8) and No. 6 Loyola Marymount (9-5) in Pool C of the tournament. While the Cardinal has a perfect 3-0 record against all three teams, none of the other squads have faced each other this year. Later Saturday afternoon, the winner and loser of each game will face its counterpart in the second round of play.
Pacific returns from a tough Northern California Tournament, where it placed 11th out of 16 teams. While it dropped hard-fought games to No. 2 UCLA and No. 9 UCSD, Pacific turned around and defeated No. 13 Davis and No. 12 Santa Clara by two-goal margins. Princeton dropped a one-point game to Santa Clara and a two-point game to UCSD earlier this season at the Princeton Invitational.
The Lions, who also competed at the NorCal Tournament, finished sixth after a stunning one-point loss to No. 10 Long Beach State. Loyola is the only team this year to take top-ranked and undefeated USC into triple overtime.
After its two matches on Saturday, the Tigers will continue tournament play Sunday with two more matches, with opponents to be determined by the outcomes of Saturday’s games.
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