With 2001 champions watching, No. 1 men’s lacrosse chases a return to the title game

Twenty-five years ago, B.J. Prager ’02 was named the Most Outstanding Player on Princeton’s last national championship team.

On Memorial Monday, Prager and the 2001 team will be honored at midfield during the national championship game halftime, a game No. 1 men’s lacrosse (15–2 overall, 5–1 Ivy League) has a chance to play in for the first time since 2002, when Prager’s senior year team lost the championship to Syracuse, 13–12. 

Standing between the Tigers and that moment is No. 13 Duke (11–4, 1–3 Atlantic Coast Conference), whom they will face Saturday at noon in Charlottesville, Va. in front of Prager and alumni from the 2001 team, as well as generations of Princeton lacrosse that followed.

“It’s a great group to watch play, and really, really exciting, so hopefully they can beat Duke on Saturday, and we can all celebrate together Monday,” Prager told The Daily Princetonian. “To be honest, they’re a lot more fun to watch play than our Princeton teams were back in the early 2000s.”

The program was a powerhouse in the ’90s, winning six national championships from 1992 to 2001 under Hall of Fame Head Coach Bill Tierney. When Tierney left in 2009, it took 13 years for the program to return to the NCAA quarterfinals in 2022, when it advanced to the Final Four under current Head Coach Matt Madalon. 

That year, senior long-stick midfielder and captain Cooper Kistler was a high school senior in the Bay Area and already committed to Princeton. When Kistler arrived on campus in the fall of 2022, he received a wristband. It said: Princeton Lax Tigers Final Four 2022. 

“I wore this wristband around, not fully understanding the meaning of what it took after 18 years to get to the Final Four, and truly how hard it was to get to the Final Four, and I saw that over the past three years,” Kistler said. 

In those three years, the Orange and Black had first-round exits in 2023 and 2024 and lost in a one-goal nailbiter to Syracuse in last year’s NCAA quarterfinal. 

This year, however, feels different. The Tigers locked up the No. 1 seed after dominating Cornell 19–9 in the Ivy League tournament final, then punched their ticket to Charlottesville by coming from behind in the fourth quarter against No. 7 Penn State in the NCAA quarterfinals, avenging both of their regular-season losses along the way.

Madalon added that he was most proud of the “consistent mindset and the toughness to stay within the program standards and just keep attacking” during the fourth quarter against the Nittany Lions.

“The level of commitment that guys have shown off the field during the year and outside of the regular season has been something that I’ve never seen at any level that I’ve played, and so it’s a special group that knows we can do this thing,” Kistler said. 

In that game, 10 different Tigers found the back of the net, including four goals from junior midfielder and first-team All-American Tucker Wade and two goals and three assists from senior captain and attacker Chad Palumbo.

“I think the teams that get to end the season in a pile have the versatility and the depth, so great ode for our team to be able to spread it around, and good to know that we can do that, we’ll probably need everyone down the stretch,” Madalon said. 

Duke Head Coach John Danowski noted that Princeton’s “firepower on the offensive end” is the most impressive thing about Madalon’s team. 

“Knowing that you have to defend every person that steps on the field for Princeton, and that's certainly going to be our biggest challenge for Saturday.”

In Charlottesville, the Tigers are the only non-ACC program remaining in the field, with two-seed Notre Dame (12–2, 3–1) and six-seeded Syracuse (13–5, 2–2) playing in the other semifinal. The Tigers beat the Orange earlier this season, 11–7, but have not played the Blue Devils or Fighting Irish.

“We hate the ACC. We always want to attack the ACC and show Ivy League dominance, so we’re fired up,” Kistler said, adding that many Tigers were underrecruited by top-ACC programs. 

Duke is perhaps one of the most improbable Final Four teams in recent memory. After starting the season 8–0 against subpar opponents, the Blue Devils lost four straight games beginning in late March and were the lone ACC team that did not participate in the ACC tournament. However, an upset win at North Carolina kept Danowski’s team alive, and they eventually earned a bid to the tournament. 

“[Duke’s] always a very well-coached team, always very athletic,” Madalon said. “I just think the physicality, the confidence in their defensive matchups, switching picks… good goalie play, good face-off play for those guys right now. They’re doing a really nice job; they’re playing really good lacrosse right now.”

For Madalon, the key on Saturday is to “be clean in the middle of the field” and give themselves a plethora of offensive opportunities, adding that he believes his group can “get up and down the field and make plays.”

In the five games leading up to the North Carolina win, the offense averaged just 9.2 goals per game. 

Since then, they’ve scored 16, 14, and 16 en route to the Final Four, playing more freely on the offensive end. 

“We seem to be making better decisions and playing more connected to each other,” Danowski said.

“When you break down Duke’s offense, you see a lot of unassisted goals, and as we look towards the weekend, we’re definitely thinking about how we can defensively win one-on-one matchups to limit some of these unassisted goals, as Duke is full of extremely skilled players,” Kistler said. 

For Kistler, the game against Duke provides an opportunity for him to match up with former club teammate Max Sloat, Duke’s most dangerous attacking midfielder and a second-team All-American. Sloat has 36 goals and seven assists on the season, only trailing attacker Benn Johnston.

“[Sloat’s] extremely left-hand dominant, strong, speed dodger,” Kistler said. “[We] spent weeks on the East Coast during recruiting trips, and also spent a ton of time together in the summer, hanging out at each other’s houses. We're great friends, text all the time, so it’s a huge rivalry matchup for both of us.”

“The long-stick midfielder tends to cover some of their best players, so if I have the opportunity to cover him, there definitely will be some rivalry blood in the water there between us,” he continued.

However, when both teams won their respective quarterfinal games on Sunday afternoon, the texts stopped. 

For the Tigers, Saturday is more than just reaching a title game. It is an opportunity to play in front of the last Princeton team to finish the job and move one win closer to cementing their legacy alongside that team. 

“I think to play in front of that 2001 class, the last class to win it, means everything to us,” Kistler said. “We talk about the long orange line, which is our alumni network, and everyone always having each other’s back, and it’s something you feel immediately when you get in here into this program.”

Twenty-five years after Prager and his teammates lifted the trophy, Princeton will arrive in Charlottesville with the same prize in view. Beat Duke, and the past and present of Princeton lacrosse will be on the field on Memorial Day with a national championship on the line.

“The whole Princeton lacrosse community is thrilled with the success this team has been having and [we’re] really excited to get down to Charlottesville and watch them bring home a championship,” Prager said. 

Hayk Yengibaryan is a senior Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif. He can be reached at hy5161[at]princeton.edu. 

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.