No. 8 Princeton Opens Season Hosting Temple

Saturday, February 16

Princeton, N.J.

1:00 PM

Princeton University

Temple

Photo by: Patrick Tewey

February 13, 2019 | Women's Lacrosse

Temple at No. 8 Princeton l Saturday, Feb. 16 l 1 PM I Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium
ESPN+ l Live Stats l @PrincetonWLAX

The 2019 Princeton women's lacrosse season begins like the previous two, with a game against Temple. Will it end the way the last two did as well, with an Ivy League championship, an Ivy League tournament championship and at least one win in the NCAA tournament?

In fact, Princeton has won the last five Ivy League championships as it heads into 2019, in which it was picked as the preseason favorite to win what figures to be a very competitive league. In addition, every preseason ranking has had the Tigers in the top 10 nationally.

The Tigers will get every opportunity to see how they match up against the rest of the league and against the rest of Division I, with a wildly challenging schedule that includes Top 10 newcomers Stony Brook and Florida. For now, it's mid-February, which means that even though it's been a little more than two weeks since the team started practice, it's time for the regular season to begin.

Princeton vs. Temple - Five Storylines

Goal Oriented
Princeton returns three players who scored at least 42 goals in 2018 and a fourth who had 29 more. Leading the way is sophomore Kyla Sears, who had an 83-point freshman year that ranks her third on the Princeton single-season list and who had a 64-goal freshman year that ranks second. In fact, the Princeton single-season record for goals had been 56 for nearly 20 years (set by Crista Samaras in 1998) before Olivia Hompe put up 75 in 2017 and then Sears had her 64, which included four against Temple in Game 1 of her career.

In addition to Sears, Princeton also has back senior Elizabeth George, who scored 43 times last year, and junior Tess D'Orsi, who had 42. Kathryn Hallett, another senior, had 29 a year ago.

In all, Princeton scored 278 goals last year, and of that number, a total of 225 of them were scored by players who return in 2019.

Defensive Starters
Mary Murphy, a sophomore, was the only Princeton player who started all 19 games on defense a year ago. On the other hand, there were also three other players who started at least 17 games and another who started 14 times.

In fact, of that group of five players, three are only entering their sophomore seasons. In addition to Murphy, there is also Marge Donovan and Olivia Pugh back on D.

Senior Nonie Andersen, who played for Ireland in the last World Championships, and senior Alex Argo, are also returning starters.

In addition, another sophomore, Sam Fish, is the returning goalie for the Tigers. Fish emerged from a crowded field last year to become the starting goalie and earn second-team All-Ivy League honors.

Chasing 400
Chris Sailer, Princeton's Hall of Fame coach, has 399 career victories. In the entire history of women's college lacrosse, only one other Division I coach and three other coaches from other divisions have ever reached 400 wins.

Cindy Timchal, who has coached at Northwestern, Maryland and Navy, has 509 wins to lead all coaches. The most ever by any coach is 514, by Sharon Pfluger of the College of New Jersey.

Sailer would be the second Division coach to reach 400 wins. The next-best total by a Division I coach, both active and all-time, is 330, by North Carolina's Jenny Levy.

Series History
Princeton has a 22-9 lead over Temple in the all-time series, which dates to 1980. Princeton has won 15 of the last 16 games between the teams.

The two met six times in the 1980s and then every year in the next two decades. They didn't play in 2011, met again in 2012, and then did not play in the next four years before resuming the series in 2017.

Princeton has won the last two games by a combined 36-7. A year ago in Philadelphia it was a 17-4 Princeton win, led by five goals from Tess D'Orsi and four each from Kyla Sears and Kathryn Hallett.

Fresh Faces
Princeton's biggest graduation losses from last year came in the midfield, where starters Ellie McNulty and Camille Sullivan combined for 45 goals and 13 assists and, possibly more importantly, 100 draw controls.

The biggest strength of the freshman class is in the midfield, where there is a talent and depth in the Class of 2022. Princeton could use as many as five freshmen considerably in the midfield, including Shannon Berry, Lucie Gildehaus, Shea Smith, Lillian Stout and Maria Pansini.

Other Notes

Temple has already played twice, falling to Delaware 7-4 in its opener last Saturday and then defeated Rutgers 12-10 Wednesday behind a career-high six goals from Olivia Thompson and three from Maddie Gebbert.

Princeton has three captains for the 2019 season – Elizabeth George on attack and defenders Nonie Andersen and Alex Argo.

Princeton was ranked either eighth or ninth in the preseason by the IWLCA, Inside Lacrosse and Nike/US Lacrosse. The Tigers were also the preseason favorite to win the Ivy League, receiving 12 of the 16 first-place votes.