Men's Lacrosse: Attackers shine in 13-7 victory

“We generated shots,” head coach Chris Bates said. “I was pleased with the pace, even though some shots, we couldn’t finish.”

The Tigers held possesion for much of the beginning of the game, digging Manhattan into a 3-0 hole with six minutes, 27 seconds left in the first quarter. Manhattan’s Tyler Jarvis would scrape back a goal by the end of the period, and the Jaspers followed with another goal to round out the game back at 3-2 one minute into the second.

Three minutes later, senior attackman Mike Grossman rocketed an unassisted shot into the top right corner of the Manhattan goal, bringing the score to 4-2. That was just the start of a seven-goal run by the Tigers that decided the match.

Manhattan was unable to find the back of the net again until one minute into the fourth period, at which point Princeton had already benched many of its usual starters.

Princeton allowed a pair of garbage-time goals by Manhattan in the last minute of the game, but for the Tigers, the match was already over, and the focus shifted to the next game.

“Midweek games are no fun,” Bates said. “You never know what you are going to get. We took care of business and, at the end of the day, it’s good to be 2-0.”

The victory followed a 12-6 win over Hofstra in the season opener, which leaves a solid Princeton squad looking ahead to its game on Friday against longtime rival Johns Hopkins, which is currently ranked second nationally.

The Hopkins game will be the first of five straight against ranked opponents.

Princeton left the game having outshot Manhattan 44-28. The Tigers also dominated Manhattan on faceoffs, winning 15 of the 23 matchups. Last season the Tigers struggled on winning possession on draws, finishing the season with a 41 percent faceoff win rate.

“We just need to keep our momentum,” Bates said. “It felt like a midweek game, and we did what we needed to do to win.”

Sophomore midfielder Tom Schreiber once again led the Tigers’ offense, netting a game-high four goals and adding an assist for five total points. Junior midfielder Tucker Shanley finished the night with a pair of goals and three ground balls.

With his team resting for a week, Johns Hopkins head coach Dave Pietramala was in the audience with several members of the Blue Jays coaching staff, preparing for Friday’s highly anticipated showdown.

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“We knew he would be there today and it was a pretty basic game, so we didn’t give them much to go on tonight,” Bates said.

The strong defense from the Tigers came without the help of star senior goalie Tyler Fiorito, who was benched for “violation of the team code of conduct,” according to Bates. Prior to tonight, Fiorito had started every game in goal since his freshman year.

Freshman goalie Eric Sanschagrin took Fiorito’s place for the game, playing for a total of 53 minutes. Sanschagrin finished the match with 11 saves, allowing five of the seven goals.

Fiorito will return to his post at goalie when Princeton hosts Hopkins. The Tigers will seek to keep their perfect record clean in their third straight home game at 5 p.m.

“I know how excited our guys are for the game on Friday,” Bates said. “We’ll be ready.”