Men's Lacrosse: Shanley's goal caps 4-overtime thriller

The referee blew his whistle and Princeton came out of the break wth a play in mind. Thirteen seconds after the game restarted, freshman midfielder Tom Schreiber threw a pass to sophomore midfielder Tucker Shanley, who was standing just outside of the crease. Shanley, who had been benched for the past three games, caught the pass, and, without pause, smoothly pivoted, firing the ball past Brown’s keeper. His teammates charged the field, thrilled for the end of their four-game skid.

“Getting a win? That’s huge,” Shanley told GoPrincetonTigers.com after his game-winning goal, “At this point in our season we just need to keep winning. And it’s one week at a time; we can’t be looking ahead at anything.”

Traditionally, whenever Princeton and Brown face off, both teams are in for a defensive grind; this game was no exception. The Bears’ Matt Chris had 20 saves and Brown fought off two man-down attacks from Princeton in the overtime periods. Junior goalie Tyler Fiorito had 10 saves, and the teams were 39 for 39 on clearing attempts.

“We knew Brown was a good team,” Fiorito said. “We needed to get a win in the Ivy League.”

This meeting was even more of a battle than usual, as both teams were missing key players to injuries. Brown’s top scorer, Andrew Feinberg, was out with a concussion, and the beleaguered Tigers have lost 12 key players so far this season.

The game got off to a rough start for Princeton, as the team went down 2-0 in the first period.

“We gave up two easy goals off of some bad communication, and their goalie made some great saves, which gave them confidence,” Fiorito said. “Definitely not the start we wanted, but last week we were up 6-2 and they came back and won, so we knew that no deficit was too large, especially so early in the game.”

Princeton was quick to respond to the deficit. Senior attackman Chris McBride snuck a goal in with less than one second left in the first period, and the next three goals in the second period went to Princeton.

“When we went down two, our offense reacted well and got a goal quickly,” Fiorito said. “Once we got settled and played our favorite defense, we were able to shut them down.”

Brown finally answered in the third period after being held scoreless for over 30 minutes and tied the game with seven minutes to play. It was the last goal scored before Shanley’s winner. The teams remained in the deadlock as the game finished, and little changed throughout the next three overtime periods. Fatigue began to set in, but neither squad let down its guard.

“By the end of the game you could see that the guys were tired,” Fiorito said. “Our offense was throwing away balls, and Brown’s offense was throwing away balls.”

In the end, though, Princeton proved the tougher team.

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“We’ve been in overtime before, and we knew what we had to do because we lost before,” Fiorito said, referring to the team’s recent overtime loss to Yale.

The win comes at a crucial time for the Tigers because it breaks a four-game string of losses.

The team looks to continue the momentum going into its game next Saturday against No. 1 Syracuse.

“We’re in high spirits,” Fiorito said. “Getting our first win in a while really allows us to settle down and relax. The ball bounced our way a little bit which it hadn’t done in the past couple of weeks.”

The game — the second-longest in school history — was one of redemption, for both Shanley and the rest of his team.

When the Tigers take on Syracuse, they will be focused on keeping their momentum going. With high confidence and more “good bounces,” Princeton hopes it can do just that.