Princeton University Athletics
Virginia Surges By Princeton, 15-8
March 11, 2000 | Men's Lacrosse
March 11, 2000
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Yes, Virginia, you are Princeton's No. 1 nemesis in recent years.
Virginia used its veteran, high-powered offense to defeat Princeton 15-8 in a men's lacrosse game in front of 1,438 at Klockner Stadium in a matchup of the last two national champions.
The loss dropped Princeton to 2-4 against UVa since the start of the 1996 season. In that same time, Princeton is 50-3 against every other opponent combined.
The loss also came one week after Princeton had defeated Johns Hopkins 15-11 in its opener. Princeton has won the national title each of the last two times it has opened a season by defeating Hopkins and losing to Virginia. UVa, which lost in overtime to Syracuse in its opener last week, has not been 0-2 since 1966.
"They're a good team," said Princeton's Josh Sims, who led Princeton with three goals and one assist. "We didn't do as good a job as we did last week of getting everyone involved offensively and shutting down their top guys defensively." Princeton led 4-2 in the first quarter before Virginia turned up its offense against the rebuilt Tiger defense, which features four new starters. UVa rallied with an 11-2 run that saw the Cavs build a 13-6 lead at one point.
"They have one of the best offenses around," said Princeton head coach Bill Tierney. "And we have to remember who we have back there. But that's not to make excuses. You have to come out and play. Now we have to regroup. We'll find out what kind of guts we have. Young guts or old guts, you either have them or you don't."
Virginia had a balanced attack, getting three goals each from Drew McKnight, Jay Jalbert and David Bruce and six points each from McKnight and Conor Gill.
Sims scored twice to give Princeton leads of 1-0 and 2-1 and then assisted on Chris Harrington's goal to make it 3-1. A goal by B.J. Prager made it 4-2 Princeton, but UVa took over from there.
Besides Sims, no Tiger had more than one goal. Prager had a goal and an assist, while Harrington, Jake Kenney, Kyle Baugher and Dan Clark had one each. Matt Streibel had one assist.
Kenney's goal came against his brother, UVa goalie Derek Kenney, who made 11 saves. Trevor Tierney made 16 saves for Princeton and kept the Tigers in the game in the second and third quarters.
UVa outshot Princeton 47-25 and had a 59-38 edge in ground balls. Princeton, which was 1 for 8 on its extra-man opportunities, hosts Hofstra next Saturday in its home opener.
Princeton (1-1) 4-1-3-0 -- 8
Virginia (1-1) 4-3-6-2 -- 15
Scoring Princeton Josh Sims 3 goals-1 assist, Kyle Baugher 1-0, B.J. Prager 1-1, Dan Clark 1-0, Chris Harrington 1-0, Jake Kenney 1-0, Matt Striebel 0-1.
Virginia David Bruce 3-0, Jay Jalbert 3-0, Drew McKnight 3-3, Conor Gill 2-4, Jason Hand 1-0, Hanley Holcombe 1-0, Nick Russo 1-0, David Jenkins 1-1, Ian Shure 0-1.
Saves Princeton Trevor Tierney 16 Virginia Derek Kenney 11
Shots Princeton 25 Virginia 47
Ground Balls Princeton 38 Virginia 59
Face-offs Princeton 8x26 Virginia 18x26