Princeton Hosts America East Foe Stony Brook

Photo by: Patrick Tewey

April 05, 2018 | Men's Lacrosse

PRINCETON (3-5, 0-3 Ivy League) vs. STONY BROOK (4-6, 2-1 America East)
Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium • Princeton, N.J. • April 7, 2018 • 1 p.m.
Series history - Princeton leads 3-2
Last year - Princeton defeated Stony Brook 13-11 • April 8, 2017

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The Princeton men's lacrosse team is starting at an uphill climb as it looks to get back into the Ivy League tournament discussion. And there's nothing the Tigers can do about that for the next two games.
Princeton steps out of the league to take on Stony Brook and then Siena before finishing the regular season with Ivy games against Dartmouth, Harvard and Cornell.
The Tigers, who are currently 3-5 overall with wins over New Jersey's other three Division I teams, will be looking to snap a three-games losing streak, which unfortunately includes all three of its Ivy games to date. Princeton will be playing for the first time since it lost to Brown last weekend 14-13 on a goal with 14.3 seconds to play.
Stony Brook is 4-6 on the season, and the Seawolves have two of those in their league, the America East. Stony Brook's only league loss came to the No. 1 ranked team in the country, Albany, by a 13-7 score. Stony Brook, who defeated St. John's 8-6 Tuesday night, finishes with AE opponents Vermont, UMASS Lowell and Binghamton.

Princeton vs. Stony Brook
Five Storylines

The Young Rivalry
Princeton and Stony Brook both have the week off from their league schedules and have played on this Saturday each of the last three years. Stony Brook won in 2015 and 2016 before Princeton won a year ago on Long Island.
Before that, the teams had played twice, in 1992 and 1993, games that Princeton won.
The final last year was 13-11, behind five goals from Gavin McBride. Neither team ever led by more than two in the game.

Youth movement
Princeton scored 13 goals against Brown, and 10 of those came from either freshmen or sophomores.
Going a little further, eight of those came from freshmen or sophomores not named Michael Sowers.
In fact, Princeton has had 13 different players who have scored a goal so far this year, and the class with the most goal-scorers is the freshman class. The breakdown: four freshmen, three sophomores, three juniors and three seniors.
Freshman Chris Brown is second on the team in assists (10) and third in points (21). He's also the only player on the team with at least one goal in every game.
Princeton has also gotten huge contributions from freshmen and sophomores on the defensive end. Princeton starts a freshman (George Baughan) and sophomore (Arman Medghalchi) on close D and has another freshman (Andrew Song) as its top longstick midfielder. There are also two sophomores (Chase Williams and Jasper Arnold) among Princeton's top three shortstick defensive midfielders and a freshman who is the No. 2 face-off man (Jack-Henry Vara).

Speaking of Sowers
Just eight games into his sophomore year - or 23 career games total - Michael Sowers already has more career points than, among others, former Princeton greats like Zach Currier, Mark Kovler, Jeff Froccaro, Kip Orban and Jason Doneger. Those are some of the best scorers Princeton has had this century.
Sowers is already 12th all-time at Princeton in career assists with 72. The single-season record is 48, held by both Jon Hess (1997) and Ryan Boyle (2003). Sowers currently leads Division I in assists per game at 3.88; if he maintains that average for the rest of the regular season, he'll have 50 for the year and 91 for his career, which would leave him eighth all-time at Princeton.
He also has 127 points in 23 games. If he maintains that pace, he'll finish the regular season with 154, which would be put his 13th all-time.
The career records for Princeton are 163 goals (Jesse Hubbard), 174 assists (Kevin Lowe) and 247 points (also Lowe). Sowers is on pace for 140 goals, 208 assists and 348 points.
By the way, Hubbard and Lowe are both in the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Sowers is one of nine current Division I players who has played at least 20 career games and has never had a game without a point. Sowers, in fact, has at least two in every game.

On the ground
Andrew Song leads all Ivy League longsticks and all Ivy League freshmen in ground balls per game, with 4.25 per game (he's also second in the Ivy League in caused turnovers per game at 1.13, behind only Penn All-America Connor Keating; Stony Brook's Ryland Rees averages 1.78 per game).
Princeton as a team leads the Ivy League with 31.88 per game.
Stony Brook ranks 66th in Division I in ground balls per game, at 22 per game.

Chasing 100
Seniors Austin Sims and Riley Thompson are both making a run at 100 career points.
With five regular season games to play,Thompson has 89, while Sims has 87.
Thompson has played midfield and attack in his career; Sims has been a middie throughout. Sims would probably be well past 100 except 1) he was a shortstick D middie as a freshman and had no goals and two assists and 2) he missed a third of his junior season due to injuries.
Michael Sowers is the only current Princeton player with at least 100 career points. Princeton has had 34 players in program history who have reached 100 career points.

Other Princeton notes

* Phillip Robertson is second on the team with 15 goals, behind only the 18 by Austin Sims. Robertson also leads the Ivy League and is second in Division I in shooting percentage at .625 (15 goals, 24 shots). Of Robertson's 15 goals, nine have been assisted by Michael Sowers.
* Andrew Song became the third Princeton longstick this decade to have more than one goal in a season when he scored his second of the year in the game last week at Brown. Song joins Sam Gravite (two goals in 2015) and John Cunningham (five in 2010). If you want to go back further, then since 2000, Song is one of six Princeton longsticks to have at least two goals in a season. Dan Cocoziello did it twice, Damien Davis did it in 2003 and Ryan Mollett did it in 2001. In addition Song also leads Princeton in ground balls (34) and caused turnovers (nine).

* Michael Sowers has not had a game this year where he's had more goals than assists.

* Tyler Blaisdell ranks 10th all-time at Princeton in saves with 459. Next up would be William Campbell, who made 477 before graduating in 1956. Campbell is also the younger brother of Tyler Campbell, for whom Campbell Field at Princeton is named. Tyler Campbell, himself a U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Famer, left Princeton early to enlist in World War II, and he was killed in France in 1944.

* Freshman Luke Crimmins scored his first career goal when he scored Princeton's second goal in the game against Brown. Crimmins' goal was assisted by Michael Sowers, and it made Crimmins the ninth player this year to score off a Sowers assist. Sowers has assisted on goals by 14 different players in his Princeton career to date. The most are still the 20 to Gavin McBride last year; current senior Riley Thompson is second, with 11, followed by Phillip Robertson with 10 (on 18 career goals).

* Michael Sowers and Chris Brown are the only current players to have started every game of their careers. Arman Medghalchi did not start the first two games last year but has started the last 21. Tyler Blaisdell has started 42 straight games in goal for Princeton, dating back to the middle of his freshman year.