Men's Lacrosse: Team kicks off Ivy slate vs. Bulldogs

The No. 5 Tigers (6-1 overall, 0-0 Ivy League) have not lost to the unranked Bulldogs (4-3, 1-1) since before any of the current seniors donned the orange and black jersey.

Subtracting from the drama even further is that Princeton is scheduled to play No. 2 Syracuse in Giant’s Stadium on April 4.

Still, the Tiger squad is not overlooking Yale. Princeton travels to New Haven, Conn., on Saturday to take on the Bulldogs, who will be fighting for an upset.

Senior midfielder and co-captain Brendan Reilly said the team was looking forward to the matchup.

“For any game, we’re going to get fired up, because we don’t have that many games,” he said. “Any Ivy League game is a huge game, since we’re playing for an automatic qualifier in the national tournament.”

Head coach Bill Tierney echoed Reilly’s views.

“The trouble with lacrosse is that [each Ivy League team] only plays each other once, so you don’t have enough time to make any one game more important than the other,” he said. “Each one is really, really important.”

Yale is led by attack Michael Karwoski, whose 15 goals give him the team lead. Brothers Matt and Brendan Gibson, who have identical numbers on the season (12 goals and six assists), join him up front.

Senior defenseman and co-captain Chris Peyser and freshman defenseman Chad Wiedmaier will anchor Princeton’s defense, which is backstopped by star freshman goalie Tyler Fiorito.

Tierney said that the defense has been unsettled since freshman defender John Cunningham was injured two weeks ago.

“We’ve been working in [sophomore defender] Long Ellis, and it always takes a little time when you are working new people in,” he said. “We’re looking to play good, solid defense.”

Reilly noted that the Tigers will need to balance their offense and defense better than they have in the past to come away with a win.

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“I would say our biggest goal is to try to play a complete game on both sides of the ball,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of games where we’ve played a good offensive game,but not a good defensive game, and vice versa.”

Princeton’s explosive offense — ranked sixth in the nation with 12.42 goals per game — is spearheaded by sophomore attack Jack McBride, who was featured during spring break on ESPN’s SportsCenter’s “Top 10 Plays” for a goal against No. 18 Albany.

McBride has scored 18 goals this season, despite having missed one game due to illness.

Close behind McBride on the leader board is senior midfielder Mark Kovler, who has found the back of the net 14 times this season.

Senior attack Tommy Davis and sophomore attack Chris McBride — Jack’s cousin — have both scored 11 times.

With contributions from these scorers, the Tigers should have a good shot at beating the Elis, an opportunity Reilly said Princeton is excited about.

“We haven’t lost to them since [the seniors] have been here, and we’d like to keep it that way,” he said.

“I don’t want to make any bold predictions that they can put on the bulletin board,” Reilly added. “But if we execute on both sides of the ball, we should have a good game. So I’m optimistic, I guess.”

Hopefully for the Tigers, they can notch a win over the Bulldogs. This would give them momentum heading into the pivotal matchup against No. 2 Syracuse on April 4.