Men's Lacrosse: Title hopes ride on unproven offense

At attack, Princeton returns two entrenched starters, cousins Chris and Jack McBride. The pair of seniors has started together for the last two seasons, and both are coming off of career years. Chris McBride totaled 16 goals and eight assists. Jack McBride found net 35 times and added 16 assists en route to being named honorable mention All-America. InsideLacrosse magazine named him a preseason second-team All American this year. Both have been named captains for the season.

The third attackman spot could be filled by a rotation, with sophomore Luke Armour likely the leading starting candidate. Armour will compete for playing time with juniors Alex Capretta and Cliff Larkin as well as fellow sophomore Forest Sonnenfeldt.

The midfield is the Tigers’ most intriguing unit. Though Princeton has suffered significant attrition at the position, it has also added one of its best offensive recruits in years to the position.

Two starters have departed. Captain and two-year starter Scott Mackenzie, who totaled 10 goals and 11 assists last season, has graduated. Sophomore Mike Chanenchuk, who was named the unanimous Ivy League Rookie of the Year and second-team All-America as a freshman, suffered a season-ending collarbone injury in the fall and has chosen to leave the program. That leaves sophomore Jeff Froccaro as the only remaining starter.

Froccaro had an impressive campaign a year ago, scoring 15 goals and adding seven assists while sharing faceoff duties. Froccaro demonstrated a killer instinct from the get-go, tallying two game-winning goals as a freshman. This season, he will focus full time on offense.

The second starter will be senior Tyler Moni. Moni has been shuttled between offensive and defensive midfield throughout his career, but figures to be a stalwart of the first offensive midfield line in his senior campaign. A graduate of Princeton High School, the hometown hero will look to be a steadying veteran presence on an inexperienced first line. He is also one of the Tigers’ captains.

Last but not least is Tom Schreiber. The freshman was ranked the No. 2 recruit in the nation by InsideLacrosse magazine and early indications are that he is all that he has been cracked up to be and more. Schreiber is a graduate of lacrosse powerhouse St. Anthony’s High School in South Huntington, N.Y. He was high school teammates with Chanenchuk, and despite being two years Chanenchuk’s junior, teams would often choose to defend Schreiber with a longpole and leave a short stick on Chanenchuk. For perspective, Chanenchuk scored 28 goals and added eight assists last season as a freshman. Schreiber’s father, Doug Schreiber, led Maryland to the 1973 NCAA title and is a member of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

Schreiber is Princeton’s “X-factor” offensively. His ability to step in and immediately perform at an All-American level could mean the difference between a solid offense and a spectacular offense.

Defensively, Princeton figures to be one of the strongest teams in the nation. The unit is anchored by three preseason All-Americans in junior defenseman Chad Wiedmaier, junior longstick midfielder John Cunningham and junior goalie Tyler Fiorito.

Wiedmaier was named a preseason first-team All-America and was named second-team All-America last season despite missing the first six games of the season due to injury. He will be joined at close defense by senior Long Ellis, a returning starter who led the team with 22 caused turnovers a season ago. Junior Jonathan Meyers fills out the starters. Meyers started at close defense last season while Wiedmaier was hurt before moving to longstick midfielder for the remainder of the season. Junior Mike Flanagan saw time on the man-down unit last year and will push for playing time.

Fiorito is the second goalie in Princeton history to start every game of his freshman and sophomore seasons. The first was Scott Bacigalupo, a two-time national champion at Princeton and a recent inductee into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Fiorito’s play has earned him a preseason second-team All America nod from InsideLacrosse magazine, second only to Syracuse goalie and two-time national champion John Galloway. With an excellent defense in front of him, Fiorito will look to improve on the .569 save percentage he posted a season ago.

The defensive midfield will benefit from a year of experience. Cunningham, also a team captain, will lead the group. A preseason third-team All-America, he totaled 54 ground balls and 13 caused turnovers last season. An athletic player with the ability to run the field, Cunningham also added five goals.

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Cunningham will be joined by three returning short-stick defensive midfielders. Junior Peter Smyth entrenched himself as a starter last season and will pick up where he left off. He will be joined by sophomore Bobby Lucas and junior Connor Reilly. Freshman Nick Fernandez could also see time at the position.

The schedule has seen a few changes this season. The Tigers will not be taking part in either of the two collegiate lacrosse marathons that were staples of the last few seasons. Princeton had played Johns Hopkins in the Konica-Minolta Faceoff Classic the last four seasons. This year the two teams will do battle at Hopkins’ Homewood Field rather than the Baltimore Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium.

Instead of facing Syracuse at Giants Stadium or New Meadowlands Stadium as they have the last two seasons, the Tigers will take on the Orange in a game played in Princeton Stadium on April 9.

However, Princeton will face Dartmouth at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, in Foxboro, Mass., as part of the New England Lacrosse Classic on April 16.

The Tigers have added a home game against Villanova, having completed their home-and-home with University of Maryland Baltimore-County. Princeton will not play Manhattan this season. That leaves 12 regular season games, with two more Ivy League tournament games possible prior to the NCAA tournament.

Princeton’s home opener is not until Friday, March 11. But that game, a contest against ACC power North Carolina, begins a period of five of six games at home with the only road game coming against nearby Penn.

The key to the season will be the performance of the offense. There is little doubt that Princeton’s defense will be great this season, but the Princeton teams of the past with great defenses and solid but not spectacular offenses have seen early demises in the NCAA tournament. The 2007 squad serves as a great example. Anchored by the country’s best goalie in Alex Hewitt and its best defenseman in Dan Cocoziello, the Tigers led the nation in scoring defense. But offensive struggles led to a double-overtime loss to eventual national champion Johns Hopkins early in the season and an overtime defeat to Georgetown in the NCAA tournament’s opening round.

To make noise in the NCAA tournament, the Tigers will need significant production from their offense.

The 2009 team, likely Princeton’s finest since the 2004 team that made the Final Four, benefited from breakout performances from a number of players who up to that point had been relative unknowns. Principal among these was senior midfielder Rich Sgalardi, who exploded for 18 goals and 24 assists in his final campaign after being a mostly complementary player his first three seasons. So who is this season’s Sgalardi?

The McBride cousins are both proven players and there is little doubt that both will continue to make tremendous contributions to the team. The remaining four offensive starters are relatively unproven. Will the third attackman serve as a legitimate scoring threat alongside the McBrides? Will Schreiber prove to be as good as he has been made out to be? Will Moni, the hometown hero, end his collegiate career with his best season? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the Tigers just might make it to Memorial Day weekend.