Princeton University Athletics
1999 Men's Lacrosse Review
August 09, 1999 | Men's Lacrosse
Aug. 9, 1999
There was a time-actually, there were decades-when a perfect Ivy League record and an NCAA tournament berth were too much for the Princeton men's lacrosse team to dream. These days there are six other Ivy lacrosse-playing schools that would take it no-questions-asked.
At Princeton, though, such years are called rebuilding years. So it was for the Tiger men's lacrosse team in 1999, when it saw its three-year reign as national champion end in the wake of the graduation of four All-Americas.
So Princeton will have to settle for this resume in the decade of the 90s: five national championships, seven Ivy League titles, 10 NCAA tournament appearances, 17 first-team All-Americas, 23 USILA national award winners and 44 first-team All-Ivy League selections, not to mention a 126-23 record. If you want to contrast that with the '80s, by the way, those numbers are: zero national championships, zero Ivy League titles, zero NCAA tournament appearances, zero first-team All-Americas, zero USILA award winners and zero first-team All-Ivy League selections. Ditto for the '70s. As for the final year of this unbelievable run through the decade, Princeton entered 1999 with some big holes to fill. The biggest was up front, where Jon Hess, Jesse Hubbard and Chris Massey graduated after accumulating 618 points in 60 career games and stamping themselves as the greatest attack line in the history of the sport. To replace them, Princeton coach Bill Tierney turned to Lorne Smith, a two-time All-America as a midfielder and paired him with sophomore Matt Striebel and freshman B.J. Prager.
Princeton used this rebuilt offense and a veteran defense to go ahead 9-3 on Johns Hopkins in its traditional opener, but the Blue Jays rallied for a 12-11 win that wasn't secure until All-America goalie Brian Carcaterra stopped Prager on the doorstep at the final horn. This setback hurt, but it was nothing compared to the following week, when the Tigers hosted a Virginia team that would go on to win the national championship. This time Princeton lost more than a game, falling 6-4 on the field and watching All-America defenseman Kurt Lunkenheimer go down with a completely torn ACL with 40 seconds remaining. The next week, without Lunkenheimer, Princeton lost 10-9 in overtime at North Carolina.
The Tigers were now 0-3 after having gone 43-2 in the previous three years and were faced with the prospect of having to win their remaining nine games to have a shot at the NCAA tournament. The first move was to shift Smith back to midfield, which left Princeton's attack in the hands of freshmen Prager, Matt Trevenen and Brendan Tierney and sophomores Striebel and Chris Harrington. Smith was reunited on the midfield with fellow All-America Josh Sims, as well as sophomores Chris Bailer and Rob Torti and freshmen Mark Pelligrino and Dan Clark.
The moves began to pay immediate dividends. Sims scored five goals as the Tigers routed Rutgers 13-3, and that was followed by a strong 10-5 win over Yale in the Ivy League opener.
Princeton's four-year Ivy winning streak, not to mention postseason hopes, almost came crashing down on a Tuesday night in Philadelphia, but the Tigers were able to pull out a 9-8 win over Penn. Princeton trailed 7-3 midway through the third quarter before Smith began the turnaround that saw the Tigers go up 9-7 and then withstand a late Penn goal and subsequent breakaway with 10 seconds to play for the win.
The Tigers then handled Brown and Harvard with little trouble before heading to a key Saturday-Sunday double duty at Cornell and Syracuse. Bolstered by the incredible return of the courageous Lunkenheimer just 42 days after his injury, Princeton handled upstart Cornell to clinch the Ivy League title. Then, 24 hours later in the Carrier Dome, Princeton won the best game played in college lacrosse this year when it defeated Syracuse 15-14 on Sims' game-winner in the fourth overtime. The game was tied eight times, including at 9-9, 10-10, 11-11, 12-12, 13-13 and finally 14-14. Neither team had more than a one-goal lead for the final 43 minutes.
The Syracuse win served as a springboard to two convincing wins to end the regular-season, 16-1 over Dartmouth and 16-8 over Hobart in the first men's lacrosse game played in Princeton Stadium.
That set the stage for the NCAA selections, which stunned the Tigers when they went unseeded and were matched against, of all teams, Syracuse. This time, Syracuse topped Princeton 7-5 en route to the NCAA championship game.
Despite the loss, Princeton still had more positives than negatives for the year. Princeton had rebounded from the initial losing streak to win nine straight and had done so with a predominantly freshman/sophomore offense. Prager, who would set the school record for goals in a season by a freshman with 25, was joined as a first-team All-Ivy League selection by Sims, Smith and defenseman John Harrington. Sims would be a first-team All-America, while Smith and Harrington would be second-team and Lunkenheimer honorable mention.