Princeton Hosts Harvard On Senior Day

Saturday, April 20

Princeton, N.J.

1:00 PM

Princeton University

Harvard

Princeton men's lacrosse Class of 2019

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

April 18, 2019 | Men's Lacrosse

PRINCETON (6-6, 1-3 Ivy League) vs. HARVARD (5-6, 1-3 Ivy League)

Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium • Princeton, N.J.
Saturday, April 20, 2019 • 1 pm
Series history Princeton leads 60-23-1
Last year Princeton defeated Harvard 15-10 • April 21, 2018

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Okay, let's cut to the chase. What does Princeton need to do to make the Ivy League tournament?

There are two weekends and six Ivy League games to play. Even with so few games remaining, possible outcomes can still change radically from outcome to outcome.

For Princeton, who hosts Harvard Saturday on Sherrerd Field and then plays at Cornell next Saturday, the season could extend into May with any number of scenarios, including a rather unlikely one that involves a loss in the game against Harvard. No scenario gets Princeton into the tournament that doesn't involve a win over Cornell.

The Tigers are three-fifths of the way to duplicating last year's five-game winning streak to end the season; the 2019 team's best bet is to see if it can match that and see where things fall after that.

This game is also Senior Day for the Class of 2019: Emmet Cordrey, Charlie Durbin, Alexander Fish, Dawson McKenzie, Mike Morean, Aran Roberts, Charlie Tarry and Strib Walker.

Princeton vs. Harvard
Five Storylines

The race for the tournament
The best way for Princeton to get into the Ivy League tournament would be to beat Harvard and Cornell and have Brown beat Cornell this weekend and Brown beat Dartmouth next weekend. In that scenario, Princeton and Cornell would tie for fourth, and Princeton's win over Cornell would then be the tiebreaker.

What happens if Princeton wins out but Cornell beats Brown and Brown beats Dartmouth? In that case, Princeton, Brown and Cornell would all be 3-3 and tied for third. They'd also be 1-1 against each other, 2-0 against Harvard and Dartmouth and 0-2 against Penn and Yale.

The head-to-head and how-you-did-against-the-next-team-in-the-standings tiebreakers would then not work, which would then mean that third place would be decided by the next tiebreaker, which is goal-differential in the games between the tied teams. Princeton has a four-goal loss to Brown, and the other two games haven't been played yet.

Since Princeton needs to beat Cornell to make this happen, then the goal-differential in that game would have to be at least plus-one for the Tigers, which would bring Princeton to minus-three. Whoever would break the tie in goal-differential would be the third seed and then whoever won the head-to-head game against the two remaining teams wiould be the fourth seed, so Princeton would need to 1) beat Cornell and 2) find itself in a tie with Cornell for fourth, not with Brown. By the way, lest you think a team needs to try to win by 20 goals, there's a six-goal maximum for any game to be considered in goal-differential.

Princeton would be eliminated this weekend with a loss to Harvard and a Cornell win over Brown.

Sowers closes in
The record for points in a career by a Princeton men's lacrosse player is 247. It was set by Kevin Lowe, whose 247^th point was the goal that won the 1994 NCAA title in overtime against Virginia.

Since then, Princeton has had some of the best offensive players in lacrosse history come through the program, and none of them could catch Lowe. Nobody came closer than Ryan Boyle, with 232. Jesse Hubbard. Jon Hess. Tom Schreiber. None of them came close in their four years.

Michael Sowers enters Princeton's game against Harvard with 237 career points. In 40 career games.

His 237 points, by the way, are second among active Division I players, behind only Loyola's Pat Spencer (349).

Sowers also ranks third at Princeton in career assists with 142, behind only Lowe (174) and Boyle (162). Known primarily as a feeder, Sowers is also five goals away from becoming the 13^th Princeton player with at least 100 career goals.

Also, Sowers needs five goals to be the first Princeton player ever with at least 100 goals and 100 assists. In fact, there have been five Ivy League players who have done so:
Rob Pannell, Cornell 150-204-354
Dylan Molloy, Brown 197-121-318
Ben Reeves, Yale 174-142-316
Darren Lowe, Brown 111-205-316
Mike French, Cornell 191-105-296

Sowers might not be the sixth, though: Cornell's Jeff Teat enters this weekend's game against Brown with 97 goals and 133 assists.

Sowers has 237 points in 40 games, an average of 5.93 points per game, a total that is sixth-best all-time in Division I history and the best in Division I in 38 years.

Series history
This will be the 85^th meeting in a series that Princeton leads 60-23-1. Princeton and Harvard first met in 1882.

Princeton defeated Harvard 15-10 a year ago in Cambridge, led by a goal and six assists from Michael Sowers and four goals from Austin Sims. Other than those four goals, the other 11 Princeton goals were scored by players who will play in this year's game.

Sizzling Song
Andrew Song has five career goals, two of which were scored last year and three of which have now come in consecutive games for the sophomore defeseman. Song is one of two longsticks in Division I this year to have a goal in three straight games, along with Robert Kuhn of Johns Hopkins.

For his career, Song has five goals, 28 caused turnovers and 94 ground balls.

Swish
Emmet Cordrey is fourth in Division I in shooting percentage at .509, with 27 goals on 53 shots. Cordrey's teammate Phillip Robertson led the country in shooting percentage a year ago at .635.

Cordrey is actually one of three Ivy League players in the top four, with Cornell's Clarke Pettersen (.633) in first and John Piatelli in third (.529).

Cordrey's extraordinary senior year has seen him go from 10 goals and three assists his first three years combined to 27 goals and 16 assists for 43 points this season.

Other notes

* Princeton and Harvard have both the same face-off percentage for the season, as both teams are at exactly .456.

* Chris Brown leads Princeton with 28 goals, one better than Emmet Cordrey and Michael Sowers. Brown has at least one goal in all 25 games of his career and is the only player in Division I with at least 20 games played and at least one goal in every game of his career. Brown has 51 goals and 31 assists for his career.

* Princeton turns the ball over fewer than any other Ivy team, with 14 per game, a figure that also ranks fifth in Division I.

* Princeton leads the Ivy League and is third in Division I in clearing percentage at .880. Princeton was 65^th in Division I a year ago at .819.

* Michael Sowers leads the Ivy League and is fourth in Division I in both points per game (5.92) and assists per game (3.67).

* Erik Peters has a .679 save percentage in his last three games, all of which were Princeton wins.