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Princeton Seeded Fourth In NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament, Will Host UMass Sunday In Opening Round
May 04, 2009 | Men's Lacrosse
Princeton will open the NCAA tournament Sunday at 5 at Class of 1952 Stadium when it hosts the ECAC-champion Minutemen. The Tigers earned the No. 4 seed in the 16-team field, while Massachusetts is unseeded.
The winner of the Princeton-UMass game will advance to the quarterfinals at Hofstra on Saturday, May 16, to face the winner of the opening round game between fifth-seeded Cornell and unseeded Hofstra. Cornell and Hofstra are the only teams to defeat Princeton.
One year after failing to reach the tournament, Princeton went 12-2 and tied Cornell for the Ivy League championship during the 2009 regular season. Along the way, Princeton defeated NCAA tournament teams Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Brown and UMBC.
The last NCAA tournament game that UMass played in was the 2006 final against Virginia. UMass, who won the ECAC title by defeating Rutgers 11-10 in overtime Saturday afternoon, is 9-5 overall.
Princeton and Massachusetts have played twice before, both in the NCAA tournament. The Tigers defeated UMass 11-6 in the 1995 first round and 11-9 in the 1997 quarterfinal.
The teams have seven common opponents (Rutgers, Syracuse, Brown, Hofstra, Albany, Harvard and Yale). Princeton is 6-1 against those teams with a loss to Hofstra; UMass is 3-4, with losses to Hofstra, Syracuse, Brown and Albany.
Massachusetts is led by senior Doc Schneider, who led the team to the final in 2006 as a freshman and now as a senior leads Division I with a .658 save percentage. The team also features two 30-goal scorers in seniors Jim Connelly (35 goals) and Tim Balise (30, including the game-winner against Rutgers).
Princeton has a balanced offense featuring five players with at least 27 points and four with at least 36. Defensively, Princeton will start a freshman in goal in Tyler Fiorito.
Princeton is 29-11 all-time in NCAA tournament games and has won six NCAA championships and made 10 Final Four appearances.
The Ivy League has sent three teams to the tournament. Brown, unseeded, plays at No. 8 Johns Hopkins in the opening round.
The complete field:
Opening round (May 9-10 at site of seeded team)
No. 1 Virginia vs. Villanova
No. 8 Johns Hopkins vs. Brown
No. 4 Princeton vs. UMass
No. 5 Cornell vs. Hofstra
No. 2 Syracuse vs. Siena
No. 7 Notre Dame vs. Maryland
No. 3 Duke vs. Navy
No. 6 North Carolina vs. UMBC.
Quarterrfinals
May 16 at Hofstra
Princeton/UMass winner vs. Cornell/Hofstra winner
Syracuse/Siena winner vs. Notre Dame/Maryland winner
May 17 at Navy
Virginia/Villanova winner vs. Hopkins/Brown winner
Duke/Navy winner vs. North Carolina/UMBC winner
Final Four
May 23-25
At Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, Mass.