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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Harvard
Players Mentioned
Currier Makes The Little Plays That Bring Princeton A Big Win Over Harvard
April 18, 2015 | Men's Lacrosse
Final Stats
Somewhere after the record-setting nights from Kip Orban and Mike MacDonald and the coming out party for Tyler Blaisdell and somewhere before Austin Sims could actually exhale, the fingerprints of Zach Currier were everywhere on a huge win for Princeton.
Blaisdell had a career-best 15 saves in his third start and Orban and MacDonald continued their assaults on Princeton's record book, and none of it would have mattered had Currier not done what he did. Added all up, along with a big night from Ryan Ambler, and the result was a 12-11 Princeton win over Harvard in front of 2,204 at Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium.
And Sims? Well, Sims was able to breath once again after Currier made the last of his contributions, ending a final minute that went from comfortable to anything but for the Tigers. More on that in a minute.
First, Princeton is now 4-1 in the Ivy League (and 8-4 overall). The Tigers would clinch at least a share of the Ivy League title should Brown defeat Cornell Saturday afternoon, and Princeton would win the outright title and host the Ivy tournament with a win over Cornell next Saturday in Ithaca, regadless of what happens in Cornell-Brown. On the other hand, Princeton can still finish as low as third in the league standings.
Harvard fell to 1-4 in the Ivy League with its third one-goal Ivy loss and was eliminated from Ivy tournament contention.
Meanwhile, back at Friday night's game, Princeton led 12-9 when Devin Dwyer scored for the Crimson with 1:52 to go. In what was suddenly a one-goal game, Currier then won the face-off and helped Princeton take more than a minute off the clock, during which time Harvard committed three slashing penalties.
When play was finally stopped, there were 43 seconds left and Princeton was going to be two-men up, with the ball. Except that Sims, a freshman shortstick defensive middie who had played an excellent game, was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, a deadball unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at that.
As a result, possession went back to Harvard. Instead of being two men up and easily running out the last 43 seconds, ithe now belonged to Harvard, who then cashed in with a man-down goal eight seconds later from Tim Edmonds. Suddenly it was a one-goal game, with 35 seconds left, and another huge face-off to come.
Currier again took the draw for Princeton. Because Harvard had two men out, face-off man Michael Keegan had no players on the wings. Because Sims' penalty was non-releaseable, Princeton only had one wing player.
Despite being all by himself, Keegan won the face-off. Despite losing the face-off, Currier went and took it away from Keegan, and that turnover enabled Princeton to finally run out the clock. And got Sims off the hook.
What else did Currier do? Well, he didn't score a goal, though he had one behind-the-back shot that hit the pipe, coming within inchest of being as spectacular a goal that anyone has scored this year.
Still, he dominated the other key moment of the game, the final seconds of the third quarter. Princeton led 10-6 when Edmonds scored with 35 seconds left in the quarter. Princeton had struggled winning face-offs all night, but Currier then won two straight and started fastbreaks that led to two Tiger goals eight seconds apart, making it 12-7 at the end of third.
Currier had two caused turnovers, seven ground balls and six face-off wins in 10 tries. He had an assist to Ambler on the 12th Princeton goal, which, by the way, proved to the be the game-winner.
NOTES
* Mike MacDonald had two goals and four assists, giving him 40 goals and 26 assists on the season. No Princeton player has ever had a season of at least 40 goals and 20 assists before in the history of the program. MacDonald's 66 points are the sixth-best single-season total in program history, eight points away from tying the record of 74, set by Jon Hess in 1997. MacDonald also joined Chris Massey and Jesse Hubbard as the only Princeton players with two seasons of 40 or more goals and joined Tom Schreiber as the only players in Princeton history with at least 100 career goals and 70 career assists. He moved to 195 career points, five away from tying Schreiber for fifth all-time at Princeton.
* As for Kip Orban, he had three goals, giving him 36 for the year to tie Josh Sims' record for goals in a season by a Princeton midfielder. He also moved past the 90-goal mark for his career and now has 92.
* Ryan Ambler had four goals. Gavin McBride had a goal and two assists and is the only player on the team with at least one point in every game this season. Sean Connors had his second-straight two-goal game.
* Tyler Blaisdell, the freshman goalie, was outstanding in his third start, with a career-high 15 saves, many of them from point blank range.
* Princeton never trailed in the game and built a quick 3-0 lead on goals by Ambler, MacDonald and Orban. Harvard would never get closer than two after that until the frantic final seconds.