Men's Lacrosse: Dominant win over Big Green rights ship

The Tigers played one their best games of the season Saturday, obliterating Dartmouth 14-7. Princeton dashed to a 10-0 lead and led 11-1 at the end of the third period. Dartmouth scored six fourth-period goals against Tiger reserves.

“We talked about winning the first quarter for the first time in a long time,” head coach Bill Tierney said.

The Tigers did just that. Junior midfielder Paul Barnes won the opening faceoff and raced toward the Dartmouth goal. He fed senior attack Tommy Davis, who found sophomore attack Jack McBride seven yards from the goal. McBride fired a low bouncer past goalie Fergus Campbell, and the Tigers took a 1-0 lead just 11 seconds into the game.

Freshman goalie Tyler Fiorito made two saves before the Tigers notched their second goal of the period. Davis scored unassisted on a run around the back of the net. Four minutes later, after a possession that lasted nearly three minutes, senior midfielder Mark Kovler snuck a goal under Campbell’s stick, and the Tigers led 3-0.

“Tyler gave us a little fool’s gold there,” Tierney said. “He bailed us out on a couple early [to keep] it at zero. That made us think we were playing really well, but we really weren’t. But give our guys credit: They battled through some lethargic play, and they knew how important this was, and they got it. At this point in the season, get me the win. I don’t care how you do it; we move onto the next one.”

Three minutes into the second period, McBride fired another bouncer past Campbell on a pass from junior midfielder Scott MacKenzie. Fifty-nine seconds later, McBride fired his third goal, again on a bounce shot.

Neither team scored for the next seven minutes, but with three minutes, 57 seconds remaining in the period, junior attack Rob Engelke scored his eighth of the year unassisted to put Princeton ahead 6-0. On the next possession, sophomore attack Chris McBride got on the board when he scored on a feed from senior midfielder Rich Sgalardi.

In the second half, the Tigers picked up where they had left off. Davis took a feed from Kovler with 10:56 remaining in the third period and fired home his second goal of the day. On the ensuing possession, Davis scored again on an assist from freshman defenseman John Cunningham. The Tigers continued to lay it on during their next possession, when Kovler tallied his second of the day on a feed from Sgalardi.

Dartmouth ended the shutout with 5:17 left in the third quarter, when attack Josh Gillam fired a shot through Fiorito’s legs. The Tigers responded with less than a second left in the period: Engelke took a feed from Chris McBride while flying into the crease and fired a shot past goalie Pat Marshall just before a crease violation would have been called.

In the fourth quarter, MacKenzie, sophomore midfielder Tyler Moni and Jack McBride scored for Princeton. The Big Green scored one more goal before the 7:21 mark, by which point the Tigers were in the process of getting every healthy reserve into the game. Dartmouth scored five consecutive goals to conclude the game.

Jack McBride led the way with four goals. McBride now has 32 goals on the season. Davis finished with three goals and an assist, while Chris McBride tallied one goal and one assist.

Kovler scored two goals and added two assists, while Sgalardi finished with three assists. MacKenzie had a goal and two assists.

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Cunningham, who returned last weekend against Cornell from a jaw injury that kept him out for a month, finished with an assist, two ground balls and three forced turnovers. Freshman defenseman Chad Wiedmaier finished with three ground balls and two caused turnovers.

Fiorito made seven saves while surrendering only one goal in his 45 minutes of action. Junior goalie Nikhil Ashra allowed five goals while making two saves in 13:37 of action. Sophomore goalie Christian Blake allowed one goal and made one stop in the game’s final 1:23.

Dartmouth was led by attack Brian Koch’s two goals and two assists.

Events throughout Division I lacrosse this past weekend have set the stage for a huge matchup between Princeton and No. 13 Brown next weekend.

On Friday night, No. 1 Virginia was assaulted for the second time in 13 days by No. 6 Duke. The Blue Devils’ 16-5 victory could very well drop Virginia down four or five spots in the rankings.

Things got even more interesting Saturday when Brown knocked off No. 4 Cornell behind the play of stellar goalie Jordan Burke. Had Brown lost, Cornell would’ve won the Ivy League title outright and would’ve been effectively been guaranteed a higher seed in the NCAA tournament than Princeton. Now, if the Tigers defeat Brown next Saturday at Class of 1952 Stadium, Princeton will split the league title with Cornell for the first time since 2006.

The Tigers would also likely land a higher tournament seed than both Cornell and Virginia. The only other two teams ranked above Princeton are No. 2 Syracuse — a team that the Tigers trounced 12-8 on a neutral field — and No. 3 Notre Dame — a team whose poor strength of schedule could cost them when seedings are announced.

Despite Princeton’s loss at Cornell a week ago, the Tigers could nab the NCAA tournament’s top seed with a victory against Brown.

“This is our last chance,” Kovler said. “We definitely have a special team going forward. We haven’t been in this spot before at 11-2. It’s been a while since that happened around here, so it’s a special opportunity.”