Princeton Starts New Season And New Rivalry By Hosting Monmouth

Photo by: Robert Goldstein

Princeton Starts New Season And New Rivalry By Hosting Monmouth

February 16, 2018 | Men's Lacrosse

PRINCETON VS. MONMOUTH
Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018 • Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium • Princeton, N.J.
Series - first meeting

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Monmouth is in Year 5 of having a men's lacrosse team. When Princeton was in Year 5 of having a men's lacrosse team, the President of the United States was, of all people, Chester A. Arthur.
The start of the 2017 Princeton men's lacrosse season brings with it a different first, the first-ever meeting between the Tigers and the Monmouth Hawks.
In fact, Princeton, also for the first time, will play all of New Jersey's other three Division I teams in the same season. Those three games make up three of the first five games of the year, with home dates against NJIT (March 6) and Rutgers (March 10) to follow the home game against Monmouth, as well as trips to Virginia next Saturday and Johns Hopkins the Saturday after that.
Monmouth has done a lot in a short time with its program. The Hawks enter the 2018 season off their first MAAC championship and NCAA tournament appearance, and they are the preseason favorite to repeat as league champ. Princeton was picked to finish second in the preseason Ivy poll, behind Yale.

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Princeton graduated three starters from the 2017 team, and all three were fairly important.
Bear Goldstein was a 2017 first-team All-Ivy selection on defense, as well as a four-year starter. Gavin McBride was a three-year starter who as a senior broke the school record for goals in a season when he scored 54. The old record had stood for 21 years and belonged to US Lacrosse Hall-of-Famer Jesse Hubbard.
And then there's Zach Currier, whose 2017 season consisted of 24 goals, 34 assists, 130 ground balls, a team-best 21 caused turnovers and a 56.2% winning percentage on face-offs.

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Princeton will be led by sophomore Michael Sowers, who had himself quite a freshman year. Sowers broke Princeton's single-season scoring record last year, when he put up 82 points on 41 goals and 41 assists.
Among his many accomplishments:
* Ivy League Rookie of the Year
* first-team All-Ivy League
* first player in program history and fifth Ivy player with at least 40 goals and 40 assists in a season
* Ivy League records for goals and points by a freshman
* third-team All-America

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Monmouth has three preseason All-MAAC selections: midfielder Dylan Schulte, defenseman Garrett Pfeifer and attackman Bryce Wasserman.
Pfeifer and Wasserman were first-team All-MAAC last year; Schulte was a second-team all-league pick.

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Bryce Wasserman set the Monmouth single-season records for goals (29), assists (16) and points (45) a year ago.

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Princeton was second in Division I in scoring offense last year at 14.7 per game. That was an increase of just under five goals per game from 2016.

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Michael Sowers already leads all current Princeton players with 82 career points and 41 career assists.
Austin Sims is Princeton's leader among current players with 50 goals. Riley Thompson is second in assists (39) and points (72).
In fact, those three rank 1-2-3 among current players in goals, assists and points.
The drop from Sims (63 career points) in third to fourth would have gone to Charlie Durbin (25 points), but he will miss the year with an injury. Next after Durbin is Dawson McKenzie, with 19 career points.

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Princeton scored 220 goals and had 141 assists in 2017. The goals are, in fact, the third-best single-season total in program history, behind only the NCAA championship teams of 1996 and 1997.
The graduated Gavin McBride and Zach Currier had 78 goals and 51 assists between them.

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Princeton figures to have three players, including two on attack, start the opener who have never started a game before. Sophomore Phillip Robertson and freshman Chris Brown should start on attack, while sophomore Connor McCarthy figures to start in the midfield.
Aran Roberts, who was a starter on defense as a freshman in 2015, is back this year after missing all of 2016 and most of 2017 with injuries. Roberts, by the way, grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and got his start playing hurling, not lacrosse.

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Princeton will be without two key players due to injury for the year.
Starting midfielder Charlie Durbin will miss the season with a knee injury, and attackman Greg Merrill will again not be able to play due to his own knee injuries.

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Senior Tyler Blaisdell, a first-team All-Ivy League selection a year ago, has started every game in goal for Princeton since the middle of his freshman year, for a total of 34 straight games entering 2018.

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Princeton will have three captains in 2018 - FO Sam Bonafede, M Austin Sims, M Riley Thompson.

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Monmouth will have a new goalie in 2018, after the graduation of Nick Hreshko.
In its history, Monmouth has had basically two starting goalies - Garrett Conaway in 2015 and then Hreshko since.
Hreshko's list of accomplishments includes being the MAAC Defensive Player of the Year and the winner of the school's award for the varsity athlete with the highest grade-point average.

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Princeton returns three players who started every game in 2017 - Michael Sowers, Tyler Blaisdell and defenseman Daniel Winschuh. In addition to starting all 15 games, Winschuh was one of three longsticks - along with sophomore Nick Bauer and the graduated Alistair Berven - to have played in all 15 games last season.

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Princeton returns three of its top four shortsticks, having graduated only Sam Gravitte. Senior J.T. Caputo, junior Mike Morean and sophomore Chase Williams all played regularly last year, with Williams the only one to have played in all 15 games. Williams, by the way, was a freshman All-America according to Collegecrosse.com, and is also a football player in the fall.
Those three will be joined this year by Jasper Arnold, a sophomore who has been an offensive midfielder, a longstick midfielder and now a shortstick defensive midfielder in his young career.

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This will be Monmouth's first game ever against an Ivy League team.

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Princeton is at Virginia and Johns Hopkins the next two Saturdays before its next home game, against NJIT on March 6.