Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Men's Lacrosse Trip: Baggy And The Five Unlikely Princeton Stars
June 07, 2008 | Men's Lacrosse
His name is "Baggy," or at least that's what everyone calls him. No one seems to know if that's his real name or not. He's an assistant coach with the English national men's lacrosse team, which has been staying at the La Manga Club resort in La Manga Spain with the Princeton men's lacrosse team the last few days.
"He's the only other Indian goalie in the world," said Princeton goalie Nikhil Ashra.
while the rest of the English coaches and players have been easily befriended by the Princeton contingent here, Baggy is everyone's favorite. And there he was, on the Princeton team bus after the Tigers' 8-7 win over the English team Saturday in the second game of their series, talking about getting "England Lacrosse" gear for the Princetonians.
If the sight of an assistant coach of one of the teams in a hotly contested game as he is warmly greeted on the other team's bus was unlikely, or for that matter impossible to conceive of in a regular game, then that was just fine for this one. Princeton's win, on whatever continent, was an unlikely one.
"We got some things from some unusual places," said Princeton coach Bill Tierney.
Princeton had five stars in the game, none of whom would have been anyone's first choice in the pregame. Yet those five were the reason that the Tigers beat the English for the second straight day, following a 9-7 win Friday in the first game.
The first was Peter Gudmundsen, a walkon who did not appear in a single game for the Tigers this past season, his freshman one. Against the English, Gudmundsen started on attack, and he responded by scoring the first goal of the game.
The English would lead 2-1 after the first quarter before Pete Striebel scored two straight for Princeton. That set the stage for the next key moment of the game.
First, Tyler Moni, Gudmundsen's classmate who played in one game his freshman year, scored on a rocket shot from up top to make it 4-2 more than five minutes after Striebel's second goal.
As unexpected as those two power sources may have been, at least Gudmundsen and Moni were used to scoring goals a year earlier. Princeton's next goal scorer hadn't done so in more than four years, and that was nothing compared to the one that followed.
Andy Kittler, one of the Princeton players who graduated the day before the team left for Europe, picked up the ground ball off the wing with his longstick on the face-off after Moni's goal and sprinted right down the middle before scoring. A former club player at Princeton, Kittler's last goal in a real game was back in high school in Menlo, Calif.
"It'd been awhile," Kittler said. "I got the ball and kept looking for someone to pass to, but no one was open. Finally I said 'hey, I might as well shoot this thing.' "
Princeton would lead 7-3 at halftime, but England stormed back, scoring four times in the third quarter while shutting Princeton out as Jason Carter, the starting goalie for Maryland this past year, played the second half. The game went to the fourth quarter even at 7-7, and Tierney kept to his plan of a goalie rotation of Alex Hewit in the first quarter, Christian Blake in the second, Ashra in the third and then Evan Magruder in the fourth. Magruder, another graduate, had played in one game in his Princeton career.
The only goal of the fourth quarter would come from rising sophomore defenseman Long Ellis, who assisted on the game-winner in Princeton's first win in the series. This time, Ellis and Magruder played catch to start a clear, and Ellis would take the ball across midfield and keep going all the way to the goal, beating Carter high three minutes into the period.
"I have never scored a goal in an actual lacrosse game on any level ever before," Ellis said. "I'm pretty psyched about it."
All that was left was for Magruder to make it stand up, which he did with two big saves in the final eight minutes. England's last chance ended with a turnover, and Princeton was able to run out the clock.
After the game and Buggy's visit to the bus, it was back to the main part of the resort, a short ride that took the team past warmups for a cricket match on an adjacent field. The afternoon was to feature a visit to the ruins of Cartagena, a city that dates to 227 B.C., founded by the Carthaginians and then conquered shortly after that by the Romans.
Perhaps if the Carthaginians could have gotten better production for its unlikely sources, as Princeton did Saturday, it might have put up a better fight.