Princeton University Athletics
Smith, Hubbard Lead Princeton Past Hobart, 13-9
August 20, 1999 | Men's Lacrosse
May 2, 1998
Lorne Smith and Jesse Hubbard snapped a tie game with goals six seconds apart in the final 13 seconds of the third quarter to propel No. 2 Princeton to a 13-9 win over No. 10 Hobart in a men's lacrosse game played in front of an overflow crowd at Hobart's Boswell Field.
Hubbard finished with six goals, giving him 14 in two career games at Boswell Field.
The win gave Princeton an 11-1 regular-season record and coupled with top-ranked Maryland's 12-8 loss to Maryland-Baltimore County put the Tigers into position to gain the top seed when the NCAA field is announced Sunday. Princeton has been the top seed and won the tournament each of the last two years.
"I guess we'll be No. 1," Princeton coach Bill Tierney said. "Who knows, though? Loyola (also 11-1) has wins over Johns Hopkins and Syracuse, so they could be No. 1. We'll have to wait and see. We'll know when everybody else knows."
Hobart (8-4), one of the teams on the bubble for the 12-team NCAA field, rallied from a 7-4 deficit to tie the game on a Nathan Roost goal with 1:38 to go in the third. Smith then cashed in on an extra-man opportunity with 13 seconds left in the quarter to put Princeton back on top, and Hubbard scored six seconds later after taking a feed from face-off man Chris Berrier.
Princeton then built the lead to 10-7 and then 13-8 in the fourth quarter.
"It was good to be in a close game before the tournament," Smith said. "This was the first time in a long time that we were tied that late, and we told each other that we had to win this game. We were in a position where we had to score and then get together and say we had to score again."
Hubbard had scored eight goals in Princeton's visit to Boswell two years ago. He now has 38 for the season and 157 for his career, the most by any Tiger ever. In addition to Hubbard's six, Princeton also picked up three goals each from Smith and Josh Sims. Rob Torti had the other Tiger goal.
"I thought I had some good looks out there," said Hubbard, who scored six goals on 10 shots. "I've been getting open a lot lately, and I've been feeling pretty good."
Roost led Hobart with two goals and three assists, while Trevor Buck and Jason Ouellet had two goals each. Fred Pawlikowski made 17 saves for the Statesmen.
Princeton's Chris Massey was held without a goal and saw his school-record streak of consecutive games with at least one goal end at 46. Massey had not been shut out since his freshman year.