Brown is coming off back-to-back 11-10 losses to No. 7 Duke last weekend and No. 9 Massachusetts two weeks ago. Princeton won its last two games by one goal, besting Yale 7-6 last week and beating Penn 11-10 in overtime the week before. Freshman midfielder Jeff Froccaro scored the game-winning goal for the Tigers in both games.
“[Jeff] doesn’t back down from big moments, and the guys around him have allowed him to get good matchups and he’s taken advantage of it,” head coach Chris Bates said. “He’s had huge goals. At the same time, though, it is nice that it falls within the context of our offense. The fact that he’s a freshman is some ways a little bit surprising, but he’s a player and players make plays. It’s been pretty fun to watch.”
The Tigers’ narrow margin of victory has kept the coaching staff on their toes and fans on the edge of their seats.
“I notice the gray hairs sprouting out of my head daily,” Bates said. “I give our guys a lot of credit in terms of having the character to win these games and having the resilience. We haven’t felt like we played our best lacrosse.”
“At the end of the day, to find a way to win is what we’re here for,” he added.
On Saturday, the Tigers are looking not only for a victory but also for the satisfaction of putting on a strong performance.
“We feel excited because [in] the past two Ivy League games, I feel like we haven’t really played that well,” junior attackman Jack McBride said. “We haven’t really played as well as we’d like to. We came out with two wins, which is always good, but we all left feeling like we could do a little bit better.”
One key to Princeton’s strength is the return of sophomore defender Chad Wiedmaier, who made an immediate impact in his first game back from a knee injury last weekend.
“Chad’s one of the better defensemen in the country,” Bates said. “Chad gives you the ability to really take someone out of the game for the most part. The rest of the defense is playing pretty well, too. We’ve made good progress there; hopefully that’s an area where we continue to improve.”
“I told Coach Raymond, our defensive assistant — he doesn’t like to hear this — but I said, ‘You became a much better coach now that Chad’s back,’ ” he added. “[Chad] fits in really well with what we’re doing in terms of team defense, so the transition back has been pretty smooth.”
The Tigers’ defense will have to shut down some of Brown’s reliable scorers. On the Bears’ attack, Andrew Feinberg has averaged 3.0 goals per game, followed by midfielder David Hawley with 2.2. Hawley leads Ivy League standings in man-up goals per game, netting an average of one goal per game in man-up situations.
“Brown is a team with talented players that will take advantage of mistakes,” senior midfielder Scott Mackenzie said. “We must play hard and disciplined to win.”
“Brown is a very solid team,” Bates noted. “They have some very good playmakers at all positions ... They don’t ‘wow’ you, but they just execute very well as a unit defensively and offensively. They are very well coached. They were down 5-0 to Duke, and in the last three quarters essentially beat Duke 10-6, so it’s a very capable team. We really have our hands full.”
The Tigers should be prepared for the challenge.
“Practice has been good this week — real intense — so hopefully that transfers into Saturday,” McBride said.
“Any time you play in an NFL stadium in that kind of atmosphere, it’s exciting,” said Mackenzie, who scored the overtime game-winning goal against Johns Hopkins at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore earlier this season.
“It will also be a good step towards [our game against] Syracuse in Giants Stadium the next Saturday,” he added.
With another shot at defeating a top-25 team in an NFL stadium, Princeton looks to continue its season-long trend of rising to the occassion, whatever it may be.
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