Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Princeton Opens Chris Bates Era By Hosting Hofstra
February 25, 2010 | Men's Lacrosse
Well, it's time for the start of the 2010 men's lacrosse season. If you haven't been following in the off-season, there have been a few minor changes to the program. For instance:
• Bill Tierney left after 22 years as head coach to become the head coach at Denver. During his time at Princeton, Tierney won six NCAA championships and 14 Ivy League titles while playing in 10 NCAA Final Fours.
• David Metzbower left after 20 years as the top assistant coach.
• Chris Bates came from Drexel to become the new head coach.
• Greg Raymond returned to Princeton after a year as assistant coach with Bates at Drexel.
• Eight seniors graduated, all of whom played considerably for four years.
• Possibly the best player on the team suffered a knee injury that will keep him out until at least midseason.
In other words, the 2010 season is clearly the start of a new era of Princeton men's lacrosse.
While the nature of college athletics is to have the team completely turn over every four years, what happened to Princeton in the past off-season is a little beyond the normal level of expectation.
Princeton has been wiped out by graduation before, most notably after the 1998 season (Jon Hess, Jesse Hubbard, Chris Massey, Christian Cook, Mark Whaling) and 2003 season (Damien Davis, Sean Hartofilis, Brian Lieberman, Anthony Perna, Joe Rosenbaum, Matt Trevenen, Josh White, Owen Daly).
Still, Princeton has not had a year where it lost a senior class where every player contributed, let alone contributed as much as the Class of 2009. And, of course, there was the coaching change added on.
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Chris Bates is a 1990 Dartmouth graduate who was an honorable mention All-Ivy League selection as a senior. He played professionally in the indoor league with Philadelphia and Charlotte, and he has a master's degree in school psychology from North Carolina.
His coaching career began when he started the program at Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia in 1993. He then became an assistant coach at Drexel, and he took over as the head coach in 1999.
While with the Dragons, Bates went 1-10 his first year and won 15 games his first three years combined. That number grew to 24 wins in the next four seasons and then 31 in his final three.
He enters his Princeton career with a career record of 70-71.
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Chris Bates is no stranger to playing against Hofstra, who like Drexel is a member of the Colonial Athletic Association.
Bates had a 2-8 record against the Pride, though he was 2-2 in his last four games in the series. Drexel all-time is 2-19 against Hofstra.
Hofstra coach Seth Tierney, the nephew of former Princeton head coach Bill Tierney, is 1-2 against the Tigers.
* * *
Hofstra defeated Princeton 9-7 a year ago in Hempstead. Hofstra led 7-1 in the third quarter before Princeton three times came within two goals.
Andrew Gvozden made nine saves for the Pride.
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Princeton went 13-3 a year ago, with two losses to Cornell and two losses at Hofstra. The Tigers shared the Ivy League championship with the Big Red, but losses to Cornell during the regular season and in the NCAA quarterfinals (at Hofstra) kept Princeton from an even bigger year.
Princeton's only other loss was a 9-7 loss at Hofstra during the regular season.
Princeton did reach No. 1 in the national rankings in April, and the Tigers were the last team to defeat eventual-champ Syracuse last season.
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Graduation claimed a four-year starter on attack (Tommy Davis), two All-America middies (Mark Kovler, who was first-team All-America, and Rich Sgalardi), the top two shortstick defensive middies (Brendan Reilly/Josh Lesko), an attackman/middie/man-up threat (Greg Seaman), the top longstick midfielder (Charlie Kolkin) and a starting defenseman (Chris Peyser).
Kovler, Davis, Kolkin and Lesko started for four years; Peyser started every game the last three years.
Davis (27-17-44), Kovler (34-9-43) and Sgalardi (18-24-42) combined for 79 goals and 50 assists a year ago.
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Chad Wiedmaier started every game a year ago as a freshman on defense, and he became the first Princeton freshman defender ever to be named first-team All-Ivy League. He was also the third Princeton freshman regardless of position to be first-team All-Ivy, along with goalie Scott Bacigalupo in 1991 and attackman B.J. Parger in 1999.
Wiedmaier was a second-team All-America last year and a preseason first-team All-America by Inside Lacrosse.
His sophomore season will be delayed until roughly the midpoint after Wiedmaier underwent knee surgery in the fall in an operation that revealed greater damage to the knee than originally thought.
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Princeton will have four players making their first career start and a fifth who is a senior who has started one game in his careeer to date, though he has played considerably every year.
The lone returning starter at midfield is senior Scott MacKenzie, whose 29 points last year alone are 13 more than the combined career total of every other current Princeton middie. The two new starters will be freshman Mike Chanenchuk, who missed all of last year with a back injury that caused him to defer his Princeton career for a year but who was the No. 19 incoming freshman of 2009 by Inside Lacrosse, and Mike Grossman, hurt his ankle in the preseason last year and was slowed by the injury for the entire season. Grossman was the No. 38 incoming freshman according to IL a year ago.
Senior Rob Engelke, who has played as a fourth attackman and on extra man units his whole career, will start on attack along with the McBride cousins, Jack and Chris.
John Cunningham, who played longstick midfield last year and could play there this year as well, will start on defense; Cunningham missed half of last season with a broken jaw.
Jonathan Meyers, who gave up football to concentrate on lacrosse, also makes his first career start, joining Cunningham and senior captain Jeremy Hirsch.
Hirsch is the only Princeton captain this season; the last time Princeton lacrosse had only one captain was in the 1980 season, when William DeButts was the lone captain.
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Princeton has five freshmen listed on its depth chart for the first game.
Of the five, four are in the midfield, where Mike Chanenchuk will play on the first line, Chris White and Jeff Froccaro will play on the second line and Tucker Shanley will play on the third.
Rob Castelo will play longstick midfield.
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Chris Chandler played in three games as a freshman and then every game as a sophomore as a longstick midfielder.
Last year, as a junior, he went back to playing in only three games. This year, as a senior, he could go back to playing in every game.
Chandler has gone from longstick to shortstick, and he will start at shorstick defense midfield as Princeton looks to replace the graduated Brendan Reilly and Josh Lesko, who last year gave the Tigers one of their best tandems at the position ever.
Joining Chandler will be senior Jimmy Davis, whose brother Tommy was a four-year starter on attack before graduating last year, and sophomore Peter Smyth, who primarily was the No. 2 face-off man last year.
Davis battled injuries his first two years before playing as the No. 3 shortstick last year.
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Princeton and Hofstra have met 23 times, and Hofstra holds a 12-11 lead in the series.
Princeton played Hofstra in its season opener for four straight years from 1984-87 and then met in the regular-season finale each year from 1988-91.
The teams did not play in 1992 but did play in the final game of the 1993 regular season. The series did not resume until 2000, but the teams have played every year since.
Princeton is 7-3 against Hofstra since the current run of playing every year began.
The other four games in the series were played from 1972-75.
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Princeton opened its season against Johns Hopkins every year from 1990-2003, when the Tigers hosted Quinnipiac. Princeton went back to playing Hopkins in its opener in 2005 and then moved that game to Week 2 every season since, including this one, as the Tigers and Blue Jays meet at M&T Bank Stadium next Saturday in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic.
Princeton opened its season against Canisius each of the last four years.
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The 2010 Ivy League champions for men's and women's lacrosse will be the teams who come through the round-robin matchups in first place. If more than one team is in first, there would be co-champions or tri-champions or whatever the case may be.
The teams that get the Ivy League's automatic bids to the NCAA tournament will be the ones who win the first Ivy League tournaments.
The women's tournament will be held April 30 and May 2 at the home of the regular-season champion (tiebreakers beginning with head-to-head will decide the site if there are co-champs), and the mens' tournament will be May 7 and May 9 at the site of thhe men's champion. There will be two semifinals Friday and then the championship game Sunday.
Had there been a tournament a year ago, the men's site wouldn't have been determined until the end of the Princeton-Brown game on the final Saturday of the regular season. A Brown win would have meant the tournament was in Providence; a Princeton win would have meant the tournament was in Ithaca.
Princeton won the game to finish the 2009 season as co-champ with Cornell, who would have hosted by virtue of defeating Princeton head-to-head.
The Ivy tournament forced the league to redo its schedule. Each year since 2001, Princeton had played in order Yale, Penn, Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown; this year, it will be Penn, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard and Cornell.
Princeton also has dropped Canisius and Albany and added North Carolina for the 2010 season.
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Princeton's 2010 schedule includes three games in NFL stadiums, beginning next Saturday with the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Princeton is 1-2 in Face-Off Classic games against Johns Hopkins.
Princeton will play April 3 against Brown at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., as part of the New England Lacrosse Classic doubleheader that also includes Cornell against Dartmouth.
The following week, the Tigers will help open the new Meadowlands Stadium as part of the Konica Minolta Big City Classic. Princeton plays Syracuse in the final game of the tripleheader (five games if you count the two high school games) that day; Princeton knocked off Syracuse 12-8 at last year's Big City Classic and was the last team to defeat the Orange, who won a second straight NCAA title.
* * *
Princeton is ranked ninth by the coaches' poll and eighth by the media poll. Hofstra is ranked 11th in both.
Princeton began last year ranked 11th in both polls before rising to be No. 1 in both in midseason.
Princeton vs. Hofstra
The site Class of 1952 Stadium • Princeton, N.J.
The date Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010 • noon
Radio/TV WPRB FM 103.3; www.goprincetontigers.com/ESPNU
The records Princeton: 0-0; Hofstra: 0-0
The rankings Princeton: No. 9 USILA/No. 8 Inside Lacrosse; Hofstra: No. 11 USILA/No. 11 Inside Lacrosse
The coaches Princeton: Chris Bates (11th season overall, 70-71); Hofstra: Seth Tierney (fourth season overall, 27-18)
The series Hofstra leads 12-11
Last meeting Hofstra defeated Princeton 9-7 • March 14, 2009
PRINCETON
PROBABLE LINEUP
Attack
14 Jack McBride Jr.. 35-7-42
22 Rob Engelke Sr. 9-4-13
15 Chris McBride Jr. 18-6-24
First Midfield
2 Scott MacKenzie Sr. 13-16-29
8 Mike Grossman So. 0-0-0
13 Mike Chanenchuk Fr. N/A
Second Midfield
27 Tyler Moni Jr. 2-1-3
1 Alex Capretta So. 1-0-1
18 Jeff Froccaro Fr. N/A
29 Chris White Fr. N/A
Third Midfield
31 Paul Barnes Sr. 4-0-4
25 Mark Feild So. 0-0-0
7 Tucker Shanley Fr. N/A
Face-Off
26 Peter Smyth So. 12x25
18 Jeff Froccaro Fr. N/A
31 Paul Barnes Sr. 145x299
Longstick Midfielder
36 Derek Styer Jr. 1 GB
4 Rob Castelo Fr. N/A
Shortstick Defensive Midfielder
16 Chris Chandler Sr. 1 CT
5 Jimmy Davis Jr. 4 CT, 6 GB
26 Peter Smyth So. 4 GB
Defense
3 John Cunningham So. 13 CT, 23 GB
37 Jeremy Hirsch Sr. 10 CT, 25 GB
28 Jonathan Meyers So. 5 GB
Goal
6 Tyler Fiorito So. 7.40 GAA
.587 S%
23 Nikhil Ashra Sr. 8.29 GAA
.471 S%
all stats are from 2009