This weekend, a new season begins in college lacrosse: the postseason. Sixteen teams remain, each with the goal to four games and claim the NCAA championship trophy on Memorial Day.
For the No. 3 ranked Tigers (12–3 overall, 5–1 Ivy League), the road to the Final Four begins at home against No. 14 Towson (11–5, 7–0 Coastal Athletic Association) on Saturday afternoon.
“They’re a great program,” said Head Coach Matt Madalon of Towson in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “They’re a conference champion, they’re a team that’s won a lot of games recently, very tough, very well coached.”
The two programs have played against each other just three times in their history, all in the NCAA tournament. The most recent matchup came in the 2001 semifinals, with Princeton winning 12–11.
“We’re really excited,” Towson defender Joe Petro told the ‘Prince’. “We haven’t played any Ivy League team since I’ve been here. It’s fun to play someone new, and we’re really excited for it. We’ve been working in the film [room] and on the field, so we’ll be ready to go by this weekend.”
Both programs have taken different paths to the NCAA Tournament. Towson endured a tough start, opening the season 1–5 against a challenging non-conference schedule. Since then, Towson has won 10 straight en route to a conference championship.
“I think how we improved was we got to understand ourselves better,” Towson Head Coach Shawn Nadelen told the ‘Prince.’ “I think we learned a lot about ourselves, with personnel as well as with our schemes.”
“We also learned that we needed to pay attention more. We needed to be more diligent and put some more time in with our skill work and our ability to just play better lacrosse,” he added.
In contrast with Towson’s early-season struggles, the Orange and Black excelled during a grueling non-conference slate with a 4–1 record, highlighted by victories over three current top 10 teams: No. 6 Duke, No. 7 Penn State, and No. 10 University of North Carolina. The Tigers’ three losses have come to No. 1 Cornell (14–1, 6–0 Ivy) and No. 2 Maryland (11–3, 3–2 Big Ten).
“[I’m] very proud of this group,” Madalon said of his Tiger squad. “It’s a group that’s 12–3 [and] the only teams they lost to held the number one ranking in the country at the time.”
On championship weekend, the Tigers lost to Cornell 20–15 in the Ivy League Tournament final. Despite being up 14–10, Madalon’s squad failed to score for the next 25 minutes as the Big Red ripped away 10 straight goals to ultimately win.
“[It’s] not how we wanted Sunday to go,” Madalon recalled. “Our goal is the trophy and to bring that back to Jersey. So [we] just have to rebound and now we go into our second season and take a run at this thing.”
Offensively, Towson is led by attacker Mikey Weisshaar. The Maryland native has 46 goals and 22 assists on the season. Fellow attacker Ronan Fitzpatrick has 39 goals and 11 assists. The duo have combined for over 37 percent of their total points (313) in 2025.
“They’ve got a great superstar offensively,” Madalon said. “They’ve got a great face-off guy. I think it's going to be a really good matchup.”
Defensively, Towson is led by Petro and senior Luke Downs in goal. Petro has started for Towson in every game in his junior and senior years and is the backbone of the Towson defense. Meanwhile, Downs is also starting for the second consecutive year and has 132 saves on a 46.2 save percentage.
“I have all the trust in my guys,” Petro said. “We got a good vibe going right now.”
“They’ve got a great toughness in their defense, like Penn, Maryland,” Madalon said of Towson. “They slide, recover, [and] they physically impact the game. They’re really aggressive.”
Despite being the No. 2 scoring defense in college lacrosse in 2024, Towson currently ranks No. 39 in the country, giving up nearly 11 goals per game.
“One thing we talk about is just having a short memory,” Petro said regarding conceding goals. “You know, if you score, it’s just the next play up.”
On the other side, Princeton’s offense has enjoyed star performances from a variety of players. Against Cornell, junior attacker Chad Palumbo finished with four goals and two assists. On other nights, it’s the likes of senior attacker Coulter Mackesy and sophomore attackers Nate Kabiri and Colin Burns. Earlier on Thursday, Mackesy was named as one of the five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, given annually to the best player in college lacrosse.
“We’re always looking to play team defense,” Nadelen said. “There [are] certain guys that you might want to key on. Coulter is definitely a guy [who] has had a ton of production, not just this year, but his career there. Their attack in general is a strong unit.”
For Towson, the key to a win will be taking an early lead on the road, forcing the Orange and Black to play from behind. They will also need to limit the Tiger offense and control time of possession, which will come via the face-off.
For Princeton, they know what this moment means. Despite reaching the NCAA tournament for four consecutive years, the Orange and Black have lost in the first round twice. They have a golden opportunity on their hands to set the tone for May on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday’s winner will face the winner of the matchup between No. 5 Syracuse (11–5, 2–2 Atlantic Coast Conference) and No. 13 Harvard (10–4, 4–2 Ivy) in the NCAA quarterfinals the following weekend in Hempstead, New York.
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate News editor, senior Sports writer, and education director for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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