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Monday Men's Lacrosse: Sgalardi Honored By Ivy League; Tigers Still Fifth In Both Polls; Big City Classic Ahead
March 30, 2009 | Men's Lacrosse
Rich Sgalardi added a career week to his career year, and the world outside of Princeton men's lacrosse has started to notice.
Sgalardi had five goals and four assists as Princeton defeated Rutgers and Yale to earn Ivy League Player of the Week honors. Sgalardi is the second Tiger to be honored this year, after Paul Barnes won the first week in March.
Sgalardi began his week with a career-high four points in a 13-6 win over Rutgers. He then bettered that with a five-point afternoon as Princeton opened its Ivy League season with an 11-7 win over Yale.
His week began with two goals in the first three minutes of the game against Rutgers. Sgalardi then scored two goals and had two assists as Princeton finished the game on a 5-1 run against Yale, a run that began when Sgalardi snapped a 6-6 tie with a goal with 27 seconds left in the third quarter.
The five goals that Sgalardi scored last week are one more than the four he had all of last season, and his nine points were two off his 2008 season total. He now has 22 points in eight games this season after having 18 for his first three years combined.
Sgalardi's senior year is similar in some ways (but not in one major way) to the 1997 senior season of Craig Katz, who went from having eight points his first three seasons to having 19 his senior year. Unlike Sgalardi, all 19 of Katz' points in 1997 came on goals, whereas Sgalardi has 10 goals and 12 assists and ranks fourth in the Ivy League in assists.
It took Katz six games in 1997 to match his previous career total of points, and like Sgalardi, Katz moved past that total in the eighth game of his senior year.
Sgalardi's big week helped Princeton improve to 7-1. The Tigers are still ranked fifth in both the Inside Lacrosse media poll and the USILA coaches' poll, looking up at No. 1 Virginia, No. 2 Syracuse, No. 3/4 Notre Dame and No. 4/3 Cornell.
Princeton won't have to look far to see two of those teams this weekend, as the Tigers play Syracuse in the Big City Classic at Giants Stadium Saturday in the middle game of a tripleheader. The event, which has already sold 14,000 tickets, starts at noon when Virginia plays No. 10 North Carolina , continues with Princeton-Syracuse at 2:30 and ends with Hofstra-Delaware at 5.