Defying the doubters

The Tigers dropped their final two Ivy League contests, finished third in the league and missed making the NCAA tournament. The two league losses were the most for the Tigers since 1990, and the Class of 2008 graduated as the first class never to reach the Final Four in nearly 20 years.

“It’s a mindset,” head coach Bill Tierney said. “One thing we’re trying to do around here is to get our team to understand that each and every game, and ultimately our season, is about us. I think sometimes we worry too much about our opponent. We may even over-prepare our guys for each individual opponent. An athlete should be instinctive; an athlete should be confident. An athlete should be playing without his mind being cluttered. We’re going to worry about the other team a lot less than we did in the past, and we’re going to worry about ours a lot more.”

Last year is in the books, but the Tigers return experienced players at many positions. The seniors in particular have already shown themselves to be a strong group of leaders.

“This year we have the greatest group of leaders in a whole class that we’ve ever had,” Tierney said.

Princeton also boasts the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation. Many freshmen will be playing key roles on the team this season. The interplay between experienced players and raw talent will be one of the most interesting aspects of the season., Tierney noted.

“You’ve got great leaders in the senior group, great talent and great learners in the freshmen group, and the combination of that is really refreshing and energizing,” Tierney said. “It really makes each day of practice enjoyable. Almost the same things become your enemy. You’ve got a combination of experience and inexperience, and they’re all on the field at the same time.”

In recent years, Princeton’s biggest issue has been an inability to score goals. Big things, however, are expected from this year’s first attack line. Senior Tommy Davis tallied 23 goals and 16 assists last season, becoming the first player to lead Princeton in both categories since 1990. Davis will quarterback the offense, which also includes sophomore cousins Jack McBride and Chris McBride.

Jack finished last season with 19 goals and two assists, earning Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors. Chris saw time on the second midfield, finishing with two goals and three assists. The cousins have played together much of their lives. Getting back together on the first line with the aid of a seasoned veteran could be the recipe for a much-improved attack.

“Playing with [Jack] for such a long time, I’ve learned a lot about how he plays and the tendencies he has,” Chris said. “On transition is really when we benefit, because I feel that’s when we both know what places we’re going to be in.”

“I’m really excited that I’m playing with Christopher and Tommy,” Jack said. “We’ve been working really well [together] all preseason.”

The attack has performed magnificently in its first two games. Princeton got nine of its 14 goals against Canisius from the attack. Against Johns Hopkins –— a team whose defense was widely considered the best in the nation coming into the season –— the TigersPrinceton attack totaled five goals and three assists. Jack McBride scored four goals in both each games.

The midfield is the most established unit on the team. Senior returning honorable mention All-American Mark Kovler headlines the first line. Joining him will be senior Rich Sgalardi and junior Scott MacKenzie. Injuries to Kovler and Sgalardi down the stretch last season seriously hampered the Tigers, but both players are back to full health.

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After experimenting during the fall, Tierney and the coaching staff have chosen to load the first midfield with a decidedly stronger lineup instead of balancing the first two lines.

“We may continue to change our mind on this, but because we play a lot of television games and there are a lot of timeouts in lacrosse, we decided that if you power up your first midfield, it makes them harder to cover, and you can play them more than the other group,” Tierney said. “The flip of that is you’ve got a second midfield with very little experience.”

Senior co-captain Greg Seaman will anchor the second line, and he will be joined by a combination of sophomore Tyler Moni, sophomore Connor Reilly, freshman Alex Capretta and freshman Mike Chanenchuk.

Princeton will welcome a fresh face to the faceoff spot this season. Alex Berg ’08 took nearly all of Princeton’s faceoffs last season. After a standout fall, junior Paul Barnes has emerged as the Tigers’ starting faceoff man. Barnes won 13 of 22 faceoffs against Canisius in Princeton’s season-opening win last weekend.

New assistant coach Kevin Unterstein will aid Barnes. Unterstein graduated last year from Hofstra, winning the Colonial Athletic Association’s Defensive Player of the Year award. A standout on the faceoff X and at short-stick defensive midfielder, Unterstein should have a serious impact on the team this year.

“It’s been great to work with Coach U.,” senior co-captain and short-stick defensive midfielder Brendan Reilly said. “He brings some ‘Long Island flavor’ to the team in addition to his pure technical knowledge of the position of defensive midfield. He does a great job working with the faceoff guys as well.”

Tierney tweaked the schedule a bit this year, replacing the traditional game against No. 1 Virginia with a Friday night trip to No. 7 University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and a Sunday morning home contest against Manhattan.

“You want to have the toughest schedule you can, but I think because of our Ivy League schedule being in April and May, we felt like the trip to Virginia was [too much of] a focus,” Tierney said. “It felt like we spent three weeks on it.”

Princeton will also take part in the inaugural Big City Classic, a three-game event to be held on Apr. 4. The Tigers will head to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., to take on the defending national champion, No. 1 Syracuse.

Before that game, Princeton will be tested often. The Tigers passed their first major test with flying colors when they upended defending national runner-up Johns Hopkins 14-8. But the season is still young. With the UMBC contest looming large and tough games against Hofstra and Albany over spring break, it remains too early to get a solid gauge on guess just how good this year’s team will be. ,,’’hard checking back to full strength after , helping the Blue Jays to overcome percent,

With critics beginning to question whether the six national titles Princeton earned between 1992 and 2001 are truly a thing of the past, Princeton has begun its campaign to prove the doubters wrong.