Princeton University Athletics
Goal Oriented
April 10, 2002 | Men's Lacrosse
April 10, 2002
Catch it. Throw it. Catch it. Throw it. Now don't catch it. Just flick it. Get it, get rid of it. Get it, get rid of it. Quicker. Quicker. Quicker. Quicker ...
There's a wall outside the locker room at Garden City High School where B.J. Prager turned himself into the most unique player in college lacrosse. It was this wall that took down Syracuse in overtime of last year's NCAA championship game. This is the wall that turned a soccer player into the Shaquille O'Neal of college lacrosse.
Shaq? That's right. At 5' 9" and 165 pounds, Prager is giving away 15 inches and 135 pounds to the Los Angeles Laker center. Still, it's not a bad comparison. Quite simply, there's no one in lacrosse who works the low post like Prager.
"He sticks with what he does, and he's the best at it," says his coach, Bill Tierney.
His goal against Syracuse 3:19 into overtime last Memorial Day is the biggest of his career, but there was nothing unique about it. Prager simply cut to the goal, took a feed from behind the cage and flicked the ball past the goalie into the back of the net. The ball wasn't in his stick more than a split-second. Prager scored his second career overtime goal April 5 against Duke. That ball was never in his stick.
His two OT goals have touched off massive celebrations. Most of his other 99 have touched off a question: How in the world does he do it?
"I'm not big, I'm not that fast," Prager says. "I think I have a certain knowledge for the game that's allowed me to score. I've found my spots. I take what they're giving me. I pride myself on trying to score every time I get the ball inside."
Jesse Hubbard scored a Princeton-best 163 career goals on 452 career shots, with a 36.0% percentage that is outstanding. Chris Massey took 400 career shots to get 146 career goals (36.5%), Josh Sims took 312 shots to score 103 goals (33.0%).
Prager, by contrast, has 100 goals on 206 shots, a career shooting percentage of 48.5% that is the best of any Princeton player with at least 25 career goals.
"He's very subtle," says Tierney. "He's not a guy who spends a lot of time studying goalies' moves. He just does what he does. He catches the ball, and he has that quick release."
Lightning quick. There have been times in his career where he doesn't so much catch and shoot as simply redirect. And he gets open. Perhaps his size works to his advantage, as he often seems to get lost on the doorstep with all the big defensemen and their longsticks.
Whatever the answer, the ball seems to find him. Of his 100 goals, an amazing 77 have come off an assist (28 by Ryan Boyle, 23 more by Matt Striebel). Of the remaining goals, several have come on rebounds of shots originally saved by goalies. Almost none have come from more than a few yards away from the goal.
"I've always said that when I have a good game, it's because the whole offense had a good game," Prager says. "We have to move the ball for me to get my goals."
Prager was much more a soccer player growing up. When he started playing lacrosse, he wasn't even an attackman.
"I was a second- or third-line middie in junior high school," he says. "When I got to high school, one kid, Andreas Huber, quit lacrosse to play golf. I knew the plays, so they threw me in there."
To get better, he began a ritual.
"The jayvee coach made me do quick sticks against the wall," he says. "Every day, 100 times with each hand without dropping it. Every day. I started to pick up on it."
While he continued to play soccer, he quickly developed into a big-time scorer in lacrosse, twice earning All-America honors. Still, there were questions about him.
"Some people didn't think you could play a guy who just played in the crease," Tierney says. "When he came out of high school, we loved him."
That faith was quickly rewarded. Princeton graduated its entire attack unit of Hubbard, Hess and Massey, who combined for more than 600 points between them, including 120 in 11 NCAA tournament games. Prager moved right into the starting lineup and responded by breaking Hubbard's school record for goals in a season by a freshman with 25.
"It was unbelievable for me," Prager says. "I knew they graduated maybe the greatest attack line ever, but I never thought I'd step right in. Here I was playing with guys like Josh Sims and Matt Striebel and Lorne Smith, guys I'd seen winning championships on TV. It was an honor to have them pass me the ball."
Prager was a first-team All-Ivy selection and the league Rookie of the Year as a freshman, and he was even better as a sophomore, scoring 23 goals in the first seven games. And then?
"We were playing Cornell, and I was just chasing the goalie," Prager says. "He turned back, and I tried to turn with him. I just fell."
In the process, Prager tore his ACL, which ended his sophomore year and forced him to watch from the sidelines as the Tigers advanced to the NCAA championship game before losing to Syracuse.
"I felt helpless," he says. "But it really helped me in rehab. It made me dedicated to getting back to play in the championship game."
Prager was back in the lineup for the first game in 2001, scoring two goals against Johns Hopkins. He scored three in the NCAA semifinal win over Towson and then, after a scoreless first half in the championship, scored four times after intermission as Princeton defeated Syracuse 10-9. He snapped an 8-8 tie midway through the fourth quarter off a feed from Boyle to give Princeton a 9-8 lead and then, after Michael Powell tied it with 16 seconds remaining, scored off another Boyle feed to win the title in OT.
"I was so dejected after they made their comeback," says Prager, who was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. "In my head, I was thinking they'd win the face-off and go right down and score. But realistically, I had faith in the defense. I figured we'd get the ball back, and then I thought Streiebel would run by someone and put it in the back of the net. I never thought I'd be the one to score."
Prager joined Andy Moe, Kevin Lowe and Hubbard as Princeton players who have scored in overtime of championship games. He is with Hubbard, Massey, Justin Tortolani, Wick Sollers and Sims as 100-goal scorers at Princeton.
In many ways, though, he stands by himself in Princeton history.
"His role is to score," says Tierney. "That's what we need him to do. We've had guys before who've been pure finishers, guys like Scott Conklin and Justin Tortolani and others, but he's different. Nobody really compares to him."