Princeton University Athletics
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Princeton Hosts Rutgers Monday In The 94th Meeting Between Local Rivals
March 13, 2016 | Men's Lacrosse
PRINCETON VS. RUTGERS
Monday, March 14, 7 p.m. • Sherrerd Field, Princeton, N.J.
GAME LINKS
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Full Princeton Pregame Story
From the time the Rutgers men's lacrosse team faced off against Stony Brook Friday night until the end of Princeton's game against Maryland Saturday, the two longtime New Jersey rivals were outscored 32-11 this past weekend.
Actually, Rutgers led Stony Brook 3-0 early on, which made it 32-8 the rest of the way for the Garden State.
Fortunately for both teams, they only had to dwell on this past weekend for a few hours, as opposed to seven days or so. After a very quick turnaround, Princeton and Rutgers will get together, looking to put the previous week into the rear-view mirror.
Rutgers comes into the game at 5-1 after starting the season with five wins.
Princeton is 1-3 after consecutive losses to Big Ten opponents Johns Hopkins and Maryland. Rutgers is Princeton's third-straight B1G opponent, to be followed by the Ivy League opener against Penn Saturday.
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The winner of the Princeton-Rutgers men's lacrosse game each year wins the Meistrell Cup. Why?
The first men's lacrosse game in Princeton history was played in 1881. It was six years later that the game was first played by Rutgers.
Rutgers dropped its team in 1889. Princeton gave up on lacrosse a little after that, in 1893.
It's hard to imagine that neither school would have reinstated its program eventually. It's just that one man sped up the process on both campuses.
Harland (Tots) Meistrell went from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn to Rutgers in 1920, where he played varsity football as a freshman and also restarted lacrosse.
A year later, in 1921, he did the same at Princeton.
Today, he represents both schools in the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
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The 2016 meeting is the 94th in the series, and Princeton brings a 61-29-3 lead into the game. The Tigers have won 27 of the last 28 meetings, including a 12-11 win a year ago in Piscataway.
Princeton has played Rutgers more than any other opponent other than Yale, whom Princeton has played 100 times.
Rutgers has not won in Princeton since 1989. That win ran the Knights' winning streak against Princeton at the time to six straight.
Rutgers led for basically the entire second and third quarters of the game a year ago and had a biggest lead of four goals at 8-4 late in the first half. Mike MacDonald rescued the Tigers, scoring seven goals, including six in the second half and four in the fourth quarter.
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Princeton has nine regular season games remainig. Of those nine games, six are against teams who were ranked in the top 20 last week, including three in the top 10.
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Princeton is led in scoring by Ryan Ambler, who has six goals (tied with Riley Thompson) and 10 assists.
Ambler needs seven goals to become the seventh player in program history with at least 70 career goals and 70 career assists.
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Rutgers' leading goal scorer is redshirt freshman Adam Charalambides, who has 19 goals (and seven assists) in six games.
Charalambides, who is from the same hometown (Georgetown, Ont.) as former Princeton All-America attackman Mike MacDonald, was named the No. 1 freshman in Division I in the early season by Inside Lacrosse.
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Princeton ranks sixth in Division I in man-up offense (5 for 9, .556).
Rutgers ranks last in Division I in man-down defense, having allowed 13 goals in 21 opportunities.
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Princeton and Rutgers rank 11th and 12th in Division I in team shooting percentage.
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Riley Thompson has six goals and three assists for nine points in four games as a starting attackman.
Thompson has six points a year ago (2G, 4A) while playing in every game as a middie.
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Austin Sims and Riley Thompson are the only two Princeton players with at least one goal in each game.
Sims, Thompson, Ryan Ambler and Gavin McBride all have at least one point in every game.
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Zach Currier has 22 ground balls, twice the total of the next highest player on the team (Riley Thompson with 11), despite having played in only three of the four games. Currier is on pace for 88 ground balls, which would eclipse his total of 81 a year ago, when he had the most by a Princeton player since James Mitchell had 95 in 1997.
Currier is eighth in Division I with 7.33 ground balls per game.
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Joe Nardella won 61 of 99 face-offs against Princeton in four years, including 39 of 57 the last two years.
With Nardella's graduation, the No. 1 face-off man for Rutgers is sophomore Alex Schoen, a transfer from Syracuse who actually played football for the Orange. Schoen has won 63 of 104 (.606) so far this season.
Schoen ranks 16th in Division I face-off percentage.
Princeton's top face-off man is Zach Currier, who has won 18 of 33 (.545).
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Princeton has five players with at least four career starts on defense.
The current starting D is Mark Strabo, who had started every game for two years before getting hurt in the opener and then missing the remainder of last year, Bear Goldstein, a junior who has started every game of his career, and Sam Gravitte, who was the No. 1 LSM last year but has started every game on D this year.
The other two are Will Reynolds, who started on defense as a freshman before moving to LSM last year and then also getting hurt in last year's opener and missing the remainder of the season, and Alistair Berven, who started last year and the first two games this year on D and is now also playing LSM.
There's also another defender, Aran Roberts, who started 13 games on defense last year but is missing the entire 2016 season due to an injury.
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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 (6-10-16); needs seven goals to become the seventh player in program history with at least 70 goals and 70 assists
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
Sam Bonafede – has taken 278 career face-offs but did not play against Rutgers last year due to injury
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; leads team with six caused turnovers and 22 ground balls (no other player has more than 11 ground balls)
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 played as an offensive middie 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 four 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 – second on the team in caused turnovers with four; has started every game on D after playing LSM a year ago
Adam Hardej – middie who had one goal against Maryland and one against NJIT
Gavin McBride – has at least one point in 19 straight games, the longest current streak on the team
Dawson McKenzie – freshman who has four goals and two assists
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; has three caused turnovers and seven ground balls
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 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 six goals and three assists in four games as a starting attackman after having six points all of last year, when he played in every game as a middie, starting twice
Strib Walker – freshman who plays 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)
MARYLAND (L, 17-5)
GOALS - Ambler 2, Sims 1, Thompson 1, Hardej 1
ASSISTS - Ambler 1, McBride 1, Currier 1
GOALIES - Blaisdell (60 min, 17 goals-against, 8 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
138 Ryan Ambler (63G, 75A) 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
75 Ryan Ambler 2013-present