Princeton University
Johns Hopkins
Players Mentioned
No. 1 Hopkins Starts Quickly To Top Princeton At Face-Off Classic
March 01, 2008 | Men's Lacrosse
Paul Rabil waited until the second overtime of the first Face-Off Classic to break Princeton's heart. He and his Johns Hopkins teammates didn't wait nearly as long in the rematch.
Rabil, Hopkins' All-America midfielder, started the scoring 10 seconds into Saturday's second game at the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic with an assist on Michael Kimmel's goal, and the defending NCAA champion and top-ranked Blue Jays settled the issue quickly after that en route to a 14-9 win over No. 5 Princeton in front of 19,165 at M&T Bank Stadium.
Hopkins led 5-0 at the end of the first quarter, 8-0 before Princeton scored, 10-1 at the half and 11-1 early in the third quarter before the Tigers finished strong. Rabil led the way with a seven-point day, with three goals and four assists. It was Rabil who scored the goal in the second overtime of last year's game between Princeton and Hopkins to give the Blue Jays a 7-6 win at M&T Bank Stadium.
"We never said at halftime that we weren't going to win the game, but it was pretty obvious that that wasn't going to happen," said Princeton coach Bill Tierney. "I wanted to see us play harder in the second half. I told them we could either be a team that was remembered for losing 20-2 or a team that was remembered for having a bad first half. In fairness to Hopkins, I don't think they could possibly have maintained that level, because they were great, but I thought we played hard in the second half, and now we have to build on that."
The 14 goals Hopkins scored were the most Princeton allowed since a 17-4 loss to Cornell in 2005, 34 games earlier. Princeton allowed only one team to score as many as 10 a year ago, but Hopkins matched that total by halftime.
"They did a great job shooting," Tierney said. "Their shooting was amazing. They scored before the game basically started, and they got rolling early."
Princeton scored on Bob Schneider's first goal with 6:56 to go in the first half to make it 8-1, but Hopkins scored twice more before the half and then onced more three minutes after the break. From there, Princeton would outscore Hopkins 8-3, outshooting the Blue Jays 23-18 in the second half. All-America goalie Alex Hewit made eight of his 12 saves after intermission.
"We started playing better," Tierney said. "We started moving the ball and playing tougher defense and making some saves. You can't wait to be down 11-1 to do that."
Tommy Davis had two goals and an assist for Princeton, while Mark Kovler had a goal and two assists for three points. Schneider had a pair of goals, and freshman Jack McBride had a goal and assist for the second straight game. Alex Berg won 13 of 22 face-offsl
Kevin Huntley had five goals and an assist for Hopkins.
Princeton will host Virginia next Saturday (March 8) at noon at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. Virginia defeated Syracuse 14-13 in overtime in the first game of the Face-Off Classic doubleheader.