.png&width=24&type=webp)
Princeton University Athletics
Family Affair
July 14, 2000 | Men's Lacrosse
July 14, 2000
Bill Tierney was near tears. His Princeton University men's lacrosse team had just stunned defending champion Virginia in the national semifinals, and his sons Trevor and Brendan had played the biggest roles for the Tigers. Now, addressing the media, Bill Tierney was speaking with a father's love, and it was bringing him to the emotional breaking point.
Only there was something a little larger going on, and you couldn't help but get the feeling that Helen Tierney might as well have been the mother of every player in an orange jersey, that these were all Bill Tierney's kids, every single one of them.
And so what that they come up empty two days later in the final. These were his boys, and they had done the old man proud. He loved every single one of them.
Bill Tierney has won five national championships at Princeton, and he has guided the U.S. national team to a world championship. He has never had a season quite like the spring of 2000.
Tierney took a team with two legitimate superstars - one of whom would see his season end in mid-year with a major knee injury - and a slew of, as he called them, "puppies," and guide it to another Ivy League championship and then one of the greatest wins in the program's history in the semifinal win over Virginia. It ended on Memorial Day with a 13-7 loss to top-ranked Syracuse in the national championship game, but there is no question that all of the best days of Princeton lacrosse are not in quite in the history books. Princeton won national titles in 1992 and 1994 and then added three straight from 1996-98. Graduation wiped out most of the key members of the Tiger dynasty for 1999, and Princeton slipped to 9-4 and a first round NCAA loss to Syracuse.
The Tigers were almost completely rebuilt for 2000. Only Josh Sims remained as a starter from the 1998 championship team, and he would have a fabulous senior year. Sims would win almost every award imaginable, with entries on his resume that included first-team All-America for the third straight year, Ivy League Player of the Year, national midfielder of the year for the second time, GTE/CoSIDA first-team Academic All-America and College Lacrosse USA Sportsman of the Year. Still, Sims and his fellow seniors were far outnumbered by the freshmen and sophomores on this team.
Princeton ran out seven freshmen in key roles in the season-opener at Johns Hopkins. The result? A 15-11 Princeton win that wasn't even that close.
Just when it started to look like Princeton was back at full throttle, the Tigers headed to UVa for the second game of the season. The defending champion Cavaliers hammered Princeton, erasing an early 4-2 deficit en route to a 15-8 win that again, was not that close.
For any team, it was a tough setback. For such a young group, it was possible that the repercussions would last an entire season.
Instead, from that March day in Charlottesville, Princeton would lose only to one more team. The comeback started in Week 3 against Hofstra in the home opener, when Princeton knocked off the NCAA-bound Dutchmen 11-8. After that Princeton hammered Rutgers, Yale and Penn in order, survived something of a scare at Brown, and then thumped Harvard the following week to improve to 7-1 heading into Easter weekend.
It's unlikely that Princeton has had too many regular season weekends like this one in its history. On Saturday, Princeton would host Cornell, who came into the game with the same 4-0 Ivy League record as the Tigers. That game would be followed by a meeting at the Class of 1952 Stadium between Penn and Syracuse. Princeton and Syracuse would then play on Sunday.
The hype leading up to the Princeton-Cornell game was erased in a first half that was in some ways perfect and other ways the perfect nightmare for the Tigers. Princeton built an 8-1 lead against Cornell and coasted to the 9-5 win that basically salted away the league title for the sixth straight year. Unfortunately for Princeton, starting longstick midfielder Brian Lieberman suffered a broken collarbone in the first minute, and B.J. Prager, the Tigers' top attackman, suffered a torn ACL seven minutes later. Lieberman would be lost until the Final Four, Prager would miss the remainder of the season and undergo surgery in July.
The loss of Prager was too much to overcome in 24 hours, and Princeton was hammered by Syracuse 16-4 on Easter Sunday. The weekend did draw the two largest crowds in Class of 1952 history, including a record 4,743 on Sunday.
The next two weekends saw Princeton formalize its Ivy title with a win at Dartmouth and then finish the regular season with a convincing win at Hobart, another NCAA team. Princeton earned the third seed and a bye in the NCAA tournament, and after a relatively easy 10-7 win over Maryland in the quarterfinals, it seemed that Princeton had come as far as it would.
The semifinal rematch against Virginia would certainly spell the end of the season. Virginia had handled the Tigers easily the first time around, and the Cavs and Syracuse had been on a collision course for the final all season.
Virginia led by three on several occasions, but Princeton began to make a move in the third quarter. Sean Hartofilis, a freshman, scored five goals, and Chris Harrington scored the equalizer at 11-11 with five minutes to play. Brendan Tierney then put in the game-winner with three minutes left, and a gallant defensive effort led by Damien Davis, Ryan Mollett and Scott Farrell backed by extraordinary goaltending by Trevor Tierney made the Tigers a winner.
All that was left was Syracuse, the same team that had defeated the Tigers by 12 on Easter Sunday. Princeton cut that margin in half, but the Orangemen, featuring six players who were either first- or second-team All-Americas to just one for the Tigers, were clearly the best team in 2000.
2001? That's another story. Princeton loses Sims and fellow captain Chris Berrier among its seniors, but the army of young players and the incoming recruiting class have the Tigers thinking big again.
Still, there's something magical about watching a team with almost no expectations grow up from week-to-week, and that's what happened for Princeton lacrosse in 2000. The young ones began to grow up, and their father was oh-so-proud.