Princeton Opens Ivy League Season At Penn

PRINCETON (2-3, 0-0 Ivy League) at PENN (2-3, 0-0 Ivy League)

Franklin Field • Philadelphia, Pa.
Saturday, March 16, 2019 • 3:30 pm
Series history Princeton leads 67-20
Last meeting Penn defeated Princeton 14-7 • March 17, 2018

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Your very quick recent-history lesson is this: In the last three years, Princeton has made the Ivy League men's lacrosse tournament when it has beaten Penn and not made the tournament when it hasn't. Going back further, in seven of the first nine years of the Ivy tournament, Princeton has gotten in when it's beaten Penn or missed the tournament when it hasn't.

So yes, it's possible to make the league tournament with a loss in the Ivy opener to the Quakers, but history suggests that's not how it usually works. Will that trend continue in 2019? That won't be answered for six more weeks after this one.

For now, it's Ivy League Game 1 for two teams who are both 2-3 and who both come in thinking that record could be much better if a few plays here or there were different.

Princeton vs. Penn
Five Storylines

History lesson
Princeton and Penn meet for the 88^th time, and Princeton holds a 67-20 edge in the series to date. Princeton defeated Penn every year from 1990 through 2011, but it's been much closer in recent years.

In fact, since 2010, Princeton is 5-4 against the Quakers. The 2010 season marked both the first year of the Ivy tournament and the year that Princeton began to play Penn in its first Ivy game.

The only times when the win-and-reach-the-tournament-lose-and-don't thing didn't play out were 2013, when Princeton lost to Penn but reached the tournament, and 2014, when Princeton defeated Penn but didn't reach the tournament.

While we're talking Princeton-Penn, the average score of the last four games in the series has been winning team 17, losing team 9, and none of those games has been closer than six goals.

Oh so close
Princeton and Penn are both 2-3. Excluding Penn's 17-7 loss to Duke, the five other losses these two teams have are all by one goal (four of them) or two goals (Princeton's loss to Johns Hopkins). All of those losses are to nationally ranked teams.

Penn has one-goal losses to Maryland and Penn State. Princeton has an overtime loss to Virginia and most recently a one-goal loss to Rutgers.

The 200 club
There are currently six players in Princeton history who have reached the 200-point mark for their careers. Here is the list, as well as how any games it took them to get to 200 points:

Kevin Lowe 49 games
Ryan Boyle - 52 games
Tom Schreiber - 54 games
Jon Hess - 55 games
Jesse Hubbard - 55 games
Mike MacDonald - 56 games

Michael Sowers comes into this game with 197 career points (80G, 117A). He has played 33 career games.

Sowers is second in Division I and first in the Ivy League with 4.00 assists per game and third in Division I and first in the Ivy League with 6.40 points per game.

Evanchick vs. Sowers
Will Sowers get his three points this game to get to 200? If he does, he most likely will have to go against the player who has done the best against him in an individual matchup to date in his career.

Penn's Mark Evanchick held Sowers to three assists last year in Penn's 14-7 win at Sherrerd Field. All three assists came on man up situations, and Evanchick shut Sowers out in the first half. In his 33 career games, Sowers, who has at least two points in every career game, only been shut out in the first half three times.

Sowers did have a nine-point game against Penn on Franklin Field two years ago, with five goals and four assists in a 17-8 victory.

Face-offs
Not surprisingly, TD Irelan of Yale leads the Ivy League – and the country – in face-off winning percentage, at .760.

This game features the No. 2 and No. 3 face-off men in the Ivy League by winning percentage, Princeton's Jack-Henry Vara (.621, also 16^th in Division I) and Penn's Kyle Gallagher (.597, 19^th in Division I).

Gallagher, by the way, has something in common with Princeton head coach Matt Madalon – both started their careers at Hofstra before transferring (in Madalon's case, to Roanoke).

Gallagher is also sixth in Division I (Ierlan leads the league and the country) in ground balls per game with 9.6. Princeton has relied more on its wing guys on face-offs, as freshmen shortsticks Jake Stevens and Luc Anderson and sophomore LSM Andrew Song all have more ground balls than Vara.

Other notes

* Penn goalie Reed Junkin has played 2,830 career minutes and is in his fourth year as a starter. Princeton's Jon Levine has played 364:04 and Erik Peters has played 44:18. Junkin made 20 saves a year ago against Princeton on Sherrerd Field in the 14-7 Penn win.

* Chris Brown has at least one goal in all 18 games of his career. It's the longest streak any Princeton player has ever had to start a career since freshman became eligible.

* Alexander Vardaro has at least one point in each of his first five games, making him one of eight Princeton freshmen in the last 30 years to do so. Current Tigers Michael Sowers and Chris Brown are two of the other seven.

* Seniors Charlie Durbin and Emmet Cordrey have combined for 25 goals in five games this year. The two had combined for 30 for their entire careers prior to this season (Durbin did miss 2018 due to injury).

* Jake Stevens averages 6.0 ground balls per game. That leads all non-face-off men in Division I.

* Beginning next Saturday, Princeton will play three home games in eight days, hosting Yale, Denver and Brown.

* There will be no radio broadcast of the Princeton-Penn men's lacrosse game, since the Princeton men's basketball team plays Yale at the same time in the Ivy League tournament.

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