Princeton Hosts Rutgers In 96th Meeting For The Meistrell Cup

PRINCETON (2-2) vs. RUTGERS (4-1)
Saturday, March 10, 2018 • Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium • Princeton, N.J. • 1 p.m.
Series - Princeton leads 62-30-3
Last meeting - Rutgers defeated Princeton 16-11 • March 15, 2017

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In case you don't remember the 2017 Princeton-Rutgers game, or the postgame recap from the game, here's a reminder:
It's not often that you see a college lacrosse game where the combined goal total is higher than the temperature.
For that matter, it's also a rarity when the combined first quarter goals is higher than the wind chill.
On a frozen night in Piscataway, here were the numbers:
Combined goals – 27
Temperature at game time – 24
Goals in the first quarter – seven
Wind chill at game time – four
Rutgers, ranked fifth in the country, defeated Princeton 16-11 in front of a handful of hearty souls at High Point Solutions Stadium.
In the history of Princeton-Rutgers larosse, it's possible that there was never a colder game than the one plyed a year ago.
That history goes back a long, long way, as Princeton and Rutgers meet for the 96th time. For Princeton, it will be the third game in its first five against teams from New Jersey, as the Tigers have already defeated Monmouth and NJIT, neither of whom Rutgers plays.
Princeton is 2-2 overall. Rutgers is 4-1, with its most recent game a 10-8 win over Brown last Saturday.

Princeton vs. Rutgers
Five Storylines

* History lesson
Princeton leads the all-time series 62-30-3 and has won 28 of the last 30 meetings.
The first men's lacrosse game in Princeton history was played in 1881. Rutgers would play its first game six years later. Both schools decided to discontinue the sport several years later and in fact both did, as Rutgers dropped its team in 1889 and Princeton gave up on lacrosse a little after that, in 1893.
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. The teams have met every year since, except for the World War II seasons of 1944 and 1945.
Today, he represents both schools in the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame, and the winner of the Princeton-Rutgers game each year wins the Meistrell Cup.

* Scarlet D
Rutgers brings the top-ranked defense in the Big 10 and the No. 9 defense in the country to Sherrerd Field. Goalie Max Edelmann leads the conference in goals-against and is 11th in the country at 7.80 per game.
Rutgers is led by some familiar names on the defensive end, including All-America defenseman Michael Rexrode and longstick midfielder Kyle Pless. Rutgers has not allowed an opponent to reach double figures in goals in a game so far this season, with the most it has allowed the nine in its lone loss, 9-7 to Army.
Princeton has scored at least nine in every game this year and is one of the top teams in the country in offensive efficiency.

* Quarterbacks
Princeton and Rutgers are led offensively by two of the best attackmen in the country.
Rutgers features Jules Heningburg, a senior from Seton Hall Prep in Northern New Jersey. Heningburg is 11th in the country in assists per game and points per game, as well as second in the B1G in both, behind only Maryland's first-team All-America Connor Kelly.
For his career, Heningburg has 121 points, with 93 goals and 68 assists.
Michael Sowers enters the game with 105 career points (49G, 56A). It took him 19 games to reach 100 points, which is three games faster than anyone else in program history
Sowers is second in Division I in assists per game (Connor Fields of Albany is first), and he is sixth in points per game.
A year ago, Sowers either scored or assisted on 37 percent of Princeton's goals. That number is up to 48 percent this year.
Just four games into his sophomore year, Sowers already ranks 17th all-time at Princeton in assists.

* Youth movement
Princeton has been getting huge contributions from freshmen and other players who hadn't played much prior to this season.
Andrew Song, the Ivy League Rookie of the Week once this season, leads Princeton and is second in the league in caused turnovers per game.
Chris Brown, another freshman, is second on the team with 13 points in four games. He also has at least one goal and one assist in each game.
Brown and Song rank 1-2 on the team in ground balls as well with 13 and 12.
Phillip Robertson is a sophomore who didn't play much a year ago, but he is tied with Michael Sowers for the team lead in goals this year with eight. Robertson is shooting .727 for the season for .733 for his career.
Connor McCarthy didn't start any games last year, but he has started all four in the midfield and scored four goals.
It's also easy to forget that some of the more established veterans are just sophomores as well, and not just Michael Sowers. Arman Medghalchi has started 17 straight games on defense, and Chase Williams has been as good as any Princeton shortstick D middie.

* Starting lineup
Princeton made two changes to its starting lineup on defense aganist NJIT. Freshman George Baughan made his first career start, and junior Charlie Tarry, who started three games last year and has also been an LSM, made his first start of the season. Princeton also used David Sturtz a great deal as well.
Arman Medghalchi has started all four games. Daniel Winschuh and Aran Roberts, who started the first three games, also played a lot against NJIT.

Other notes

* Riley Thompson tied his career high of three goals in the game against NJIT. Thompson has four career three-goal games.

* Strib Walker had his first two career goals in the win over NJIT. Freshman Jamie Atkinson had his first goal in his first appearance.

* Princeton is 53rd in the country in face-off winning percentage but third in the country in ground balls per game. Rutgers has won 51.1 percent of its face-offs as a team. Princeton has won 42.3 percent.

* Tyler Blaisdell has started 36 straight games in goal for the Tigers. Max Edelmann has started every game the last two years in goal for the Scarlet Knights (19 straight) after being a junior college All-America at the Community College of Baltimore County.

* Emmet Cordrey had three goals for his first two seasons and then didn't score in the season-opener against Monmouth. Since then, Cordrey has five goals in three games, including at least one in each game.

* In addition to everything else about Michael Sowers, he has at least two points in every game of his career. He had three goals and two assists against Rutgers a year ago.

* Austin Sims has 56 career goals, the most by any current Princeton player. Sims had three goals and two assists against NJIT.

* Princeton leads the Ivy League in caused turnovers per game.

* Princeton opens its Ivy League season at home against Penn next Saturday, March 17, at 4 p.m.

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