Princeton University Athletics
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Princeton Hosts No. 11/12 Maryland As Big Ten Swing Continues
March 10, 2016 | Men's Lacrosse
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The Princeton men's lacrosse team, fresh from playing one nationally ranked Big Ten team, will now play two more in three days, beginning with Maryland Saturday and continuing with Rutgers Monday.
Princeton and Maryland played in the regular season a year ago for the first time since 1971. Prior to that, the previous six meetings between the two had been in the NCAA tournament.
The first of those NCAA games was the 1992 quarterfinals, a game Princeton won 11-10 in Palmer Stadium.
The 2016 game will be the first one for Maryland at Princeton since then.
Maybe being at Princeton is new for these Terps. Being on the road is not.
In the last week alone, Maryland has traveled to California to take on No. 1 Notre Dame (a 9-4 loss last Sunday) and then flown back to Philadelphia to take on Drexel (a 12-8 win Tuesday).
Princeton has played two of its first three on the road but now is home for seven of its final 10 regular-season games, including the next three.
Of those three, two are against the Big Ten, with the game against Maryland followed by a game against Rutgers Monday night. These two games will actually be Games 2 and 3 in a row against teams from the Big Ten, after Princeton fell to Johns Hopkins 17-7 a week ago.
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Maryland defeated Princeton 11-4 last year, with a decisive 5-0 run in the third quarter that broke the game open. Princeton did not touch the ball during any point of that run.
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The two leading scorers in this game are hardly strangers to each other. Princeton's Ryan Ambler (4G, 9A) and Maryland's Matt Rambo (7G, 4A) were teammates in Abington youth lacrosse outside of Phliadelphia, and they played together at Abington High School before Rambo transfered to La Salle High for his junior year.
Rambo scored three goals in the game against Princeton last year. No Princeton player scored more than one, and the game against Maryland last year was the only one Princeton played in 2015 in which neither Mike MacDonald nor Kip Orban - who would combine for 93 goals on the year - would score.
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Princeton's Zach Currier will return to the lineup after missing last week's game against Johns Hopkins. Currier was ejected from the Hofstra game after the Pride's game-winning goal in overtime a week earlier.
Currier had 11 ground balls and four caused turnovers against Hofstra, becoming the first Princeton player to reach double figures in ground balls in a game since John Cunningham against North Carolina in 2010.
Currier leads Princeton in caused turnovers (four) and ground balls (13) even without playing in one of the three games.
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Tyler Blaisdell made nine saves in Princeton's first two games and then made 20 against Johns Hopkins.
Blaisdell became the first Princeton goalie to reach 20 in a game since Alex Hewit did so against Virginia in 2006.
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So far this year, Princeton has three players with at least one goal in each of the first three games: Austin Sims, Riley Thompson and Dawson McKenzie.
Sims is a member of the U.S. U19 team for this summer's World Championships in British Columbia. The other two are Canadians who came to Princeton after playing at Culver Military Academy in Indiana.
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Ryan Ambler continues his move up the Princeton career scoring lists.
The senior, a four-year starter, enters the Maryland game with 62 career goals and 74 career assists, numbers that leave him tied with Matt Striebel for 10th at Princeton in assists and in 19th at Princeton in points scored.
He is also eight goals away from becoming the seventh player in program history to have at least 70 career goals and 70 career assists.
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Ryan Ambler has 135 career points. Every other Princeton player combined has 167 career points, giving Ambler 45% of the team's career scoring.
Ambler also has 74 career assists; every other current Tiger combined has 67.
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Riley Thompson has five goals and three assists for eighth points in two games this year. He had six points in 15 games a year ago.
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Princeton has 10 regular-season games remaining. Of its 10 remaining opponents, three are currently ranked in the Top 10 (Yale, Brown, Harvard), three more are ranked 11-20 (Maryland, Rutgers, Stony Brook) and two more are receiving votes (Penn, Lehigh).
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Mark Strabo started every game on defense in 2013 and 2014 and the opener in 2015. Strabo then missed the rest of the 2015 season due to an injury and was unable to play in the first two games of this season due to a different injury suffered in preseason.
He finally was able to return for the game last Saturday at Johns Hopkins, where he started and had a caused turnover and two ground balls.
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Gavin McBride had no points and no assists as a freshman. He has at least one point in every game since, a total of 43 points (28G, 15A) in 18 games.
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Princeton has won 34 of 84 face-offs (40.5%). Maryland has won 48 of 84 (57.1%) - and that is after the graduation of All-America FOGO Charlie Raffa, who won 13 of 20 against Princeton a year ago (65%).
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Princeton leads Division I in man-up offense, having converted five of its seven opportunities (.714). Maryland ranks sixth (5 for 9, .556).
On the other side, Maryland is also sixth, having allowed just two EMO goals in 12 opportunities (.833). The only teams in the country to have allowed fewer EMO goals than Maryland are Cornell (zero) and Penn and Bucknell (one each).
Princeton has allowed seven EMO goals in 15 opportunities.
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Princeton ranks third in Division I in team shooting percentage at .376 and is tied with Ohio State for ninth in fewest turnovers (11.67) per game.
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ONE LINERS
Bear Altemus – junior with a year of experience on the second midfield line who missed the first two games but returned to play against Johns Hopkins
John Alvarez – freshman backup goalie who played final 4:51 against NJIT with no saves or goals-against
Ryan Ambler - senior captain, fourth-year starter on attack, MLL draftee and Tewaaraton watchlist selection who is Princeton's leading scorer this season (4-9-13) and one of 11 players in program history with at least 60 goals and 60 assists and was also a youth lacrosse teammate with Maryland's Matt Rambo, the Terps' leading scorer
Alistair Berven – veteran who can play defense or longstick midfield after starting nine games on D a year ago and starting on D the first two games this year
Tyler Blaisdell – became the first Princeton goalie since Alex Hewit against Virginia in 2006 to have at least 20 saves in a game when he saved 20 against Johns Hopkins last week
Sam Bonafede – has taken 44 of the team's 84 face-offs through three games
Matt Brophy – will miss the season due to injury
Luke Brugger – senior who can play longstick midfield
J.T. Caputo – two-way middie who had a goal and assist against NJIT for his first two career points
Sean Connors – started 10 games on attack last year, when he scored 10 goals, but is playing midfield this year
Emmet Cordrey – freshman high school All-America who had two goals in his first collegiate game
Zach Currier – preseason second-team All-America and Tewaaraton watchlist selection who can do pretty much anything necessary to impact a game, offensively, defensively, facing off and playing on the face-off wings; he missed the Hopkins game after being ejected after the overtime goal against Hofstra
Austin deButts – captain and top shortstick defensive middie who led the team in caused turnovers a year ago had his first career point with an assist against NJIT
Charlie Durbin – freshman who has faced-off and who scored two goals in the season opener against NJIT
Alexander Fish – offensive middie who walked on a year ago
Carter Flaig – leading scorer all-time at St. Paul's has four points in three college games
Braedon Gait – sophomore middie who had his first career goal against NJIT
Bear Goldstein – junior captain who is the only player on the team who has started every game of his career
Sam Gravitte – starting on defense after being the main LSM a year ago; had an assist against NJIT
Adam Hardej – middie who had one goal against NJIT
Gavin McBride – has at least one point in 18straight games, the longest current streak on the team
Dawson McKenzie – freshman who has at least one goal in every game this season
Greg Merrill – will miss the season due to injury
Mike Morean – freshman shortstick D middie who had an assist and caused turnover against NJIT
Jack O'Brien – face-off man who won the gray T-shirt with the Spartan Shield after the preseason conditioning program
Drew O'Connell – offensive middie who has worked through injuries
Matt O'Connor – senior captain who has started 16 games in goal in his career and had four saves without allowing a goal in 10:17 against NJIT
Will Reynolds – returned as LSM after missing the final 14 games a year ago due to injury and starting as a freshman on D
Aran Roberts – started 13 games on D a year ago but will miss 2016 due to injury
Oliver Schmickel – freshman backup goalie who played 4:58 against NJIT
Austin Sims – sophomore who made the U.S. U-19 team, has at least one goal in every game, with his first two-goal game last week against Hopkins
Mark Strabo – made his return to the starting defense against Hopkins after starting every game on D his first two years and then missing almost all of last year after getting injured in the opener
Charlie Tarry – freshman longstick
Riley Thompson – Canadian who has five goals and three assists in tthree games after having six points all of last year, when he played in every game as a middie, starting twice
Strib Walker – freshman who will play shortstick D middie and had two ground balls against NJIT
Bobby Weaver - two-way middie who was one of the top shortstick D middies a year ago; had his first two career goals in the game against Hofstra and then another goal against Hopkins
Dylan White – senior defenseman who is in his first year with the lacrosse team after playing four years of football
Daniel Winschuh – could see time as a longstick midfielder
GAME BY GAME
NJIT (W, 21-4)
GOALS - Currier 4, Thompson 3, Ambler 2, McKenzie 2, Durbin 2, Cordrey 2, Sims 1, Bonafede 1, Flaig 1, Caputo 1, Gait 1, Hardej 1
ASSISTS - Ambler 3, Currier 3, Thompson 2, McBride 1, Morean 1, Gravitte 1, deButts 1, McKenzie 1, Flaig 1, Caputo 1
GOALIES - Blaisdell (39:54 min, 3 goals-against, 3 saves),
O'Connor (10:17, 0 goals-against, 4 saves), Schmickel (4:58, 1 goal-against, 0 saves, Alvarez 4:51, 0 goals-against, 0 saves)
HOFSTRA (L, 11-10 OT)
GOALS - McBride 3, Weaver 2, Ambler 2, McKenzie 1, Thompson 1, Sims 1
ASSISTS - Ambler 4, Flaig 2, McBride 1, McKenzie 1, Thompson 1
GOALIES - Blaisdell (60 min, 11 goals-against, 6 saves)
JOHNS HOPKINS (L, 17-7)
GOALS - Sims 2, McBride 1, Thompson 1, Hardej 1, McKenzie 1, Weaver 1
ASSISTS - Ambler 2, Connors 1
GOALIES - Blaisdell (60 min, 17 goals-against, 20 saves)
Career Points
247 Kevin Lowe (73G, 174A) 1991-94
232 Ryan Boyle (70G, 162A) 2001-04
215 Jon Hess, (82G, 133A) 1995-98
211 Jesse Hubbard (163G, 48A) 1995-98
208 Mike MacDonald (132G, 76A) 2012-16
200 Tom Schreiber (106G, 94A)......... 2011-14
192 Chris Massey (146G, 46A) 1995-98
182 Dave Heubeck (83G, 99A) 1977-80
174 Wick Sollers (114G, 60A) 1975-77
164 Justin Tortolani (120G, 44A) 1989-82
163 Dave Tickner (94G, 69A) 1975-77
153 Gerald Ronon (97G, 56A) 1980-83
152 Peter Trombino (98G, 54A) 2004-07
147 Bo Willis (63G, 84A) 1951-53
146 Don Hahn (50G, 96A) 1949-51
141 Josh Sims (103G, 38A) 1997-2000
139 Rob Polumbo (74G, 65A) 1985-88
137 Taylor Simmers (72G, 65A) 1991-94
135 Ryan Ambler (61G, 74A) 2013-present
Career Assists
174 Kevin Lowe 1991-94
162 Ryan Boyle 2001-04
133 Jon Hess 1995-98
99 Dave Heubeck 1977-80
96 Don Hahn 1982-85
94 Tom Schreiber 2011-15
89 Charles Stillwell 1982-85
84 Bo Willis 1951-53
76 Mike MacDonald 2012-15
74 Matt Striebel 1997-00
74 Ryan Ambler 2013-present