Princeton Hosts Siena In Final Non-League Game

Tuesday, April 9

Princeton, N.J.

6:00 PM

Princeton University

Siena

Charlie Tarry and the Tigers are home against Siena Tuesday (6).

Photo by: Patrick Tewey

April 08, 2019 | Men's Lacrosse

PRINCETON (4-6, 0-3 Ivy League) VS. SIENA (5-4, 3-2 MAAC)

Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium • Princeton, N.J.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019 • 6 pm
Series history Princeton leads 1-0
Last meeting Princeton defeated Siena 17-11 • April 10, 2018

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Between them, the Princeton and Siena men's lacrosse team have five league games remaining. Every possession of all five of those games will be important as both would like to play in their respective conference tournaments.

Before they can start any of those five games, though, there is the game between the two on Sherrerd Field Tuesday night, as well as the Siena game against NJIT in Loudonville Saturday.

That's not to imply there's nothing to play for outside the league. Far from it. As Princeton saw last year, making a run through the second half of the Ivy League schedule starts with momentum from the last two non-league games, and that began Saturday at Stony Brook.

Princeton vs. Siena
Five Storylines

Series history
The series history between these teams is easy to recap, since this is just the second game between the two. The first one was a year ago at Siena, where Princeton won 17-11.

Princeton led 14-3 early in the third quarter before Siena finished the game on an 8-3 run. Phillip Robertson scored seven goals in the game, and Michael Sowers had a three-goal, five-assist afternoon. Chris Brown scored three times as well.

Mike Reilly, the Saints' second-leading scorer this year with 34 points (23G, 11A) led Siena with four goals in the game last year.

Goal oriented
Princeton and Siena are both in the top 13 in the country in scoring offense.

Siena averages a half-goal more per game than Princeton, with 13.6 for the Saints, a figure that is eight in the country. Princeton, at 13.1 per game, is 13^th.

Interestingly, Siena leads the MAAC in scoring offense. And Princeton? Well, the Tigers are just fourth in the Ivy League, which has three of the top seven scoring offenses (Cornell, Yale, Penn).

Robertson from Sowers
Phillip Robertson, who scored seven goals against Siena a year ago, scored three times against Stony Brook to reach 50 for his career.

Of Robertson's 50 career goals, exactly half, 25, have been assisted by Sowers. In fact, Sowers has more assists to Robertson than to any other player, with Gavin McBride still in second with 20 despite playing only one season with Sowers.

In addition, Sowers has assists to 18 different players. Among active players, there are two others who have scored at least 10 goals on assists from Sowers – Emmet Cordrey with 11 and Chris Brown with 10.

As for Sowers, he is already third all-time at Princeton in career points with 219, trailing only Kevin Lowe (247) and Ryan Boyle (232). He's also tied for third with Jon Hess in career assists with 133, behind Lowe's 174 and Boyle's 162.

League races
Princeton is 0-3 in the Ivy League, with games left Saturday at Dartmouth, a week from Saturday at home against Harvard and then April 27 at Cornell. Princeton was in this same position a year ago and won out, going from 0-3 to 3-3.

Princeton, if it wants to play in the Ivy League tournament, needs to win all three of those games, on a practical, if not mathematical, level.

One year after being 3-9 overall and 1-5 in the MAAC, Siena is now 5-4 overall and 3-2 in the league. The Saints still have league games remaining with Detroit Mercy and Monmouth in what is a closely bunched race, with four teams with one loss (including Detroit Mercy) and then Siena with two.

Turnovers
Don't be expecting a lot of them in this game. Siena is the team that turns the ball over the least in all of Division I, with 13.22 per game. Georgetown ranks second in the country, and then third is Princeton (13.7).

Other notes

* Princeton has had 19 different players start a game, defined as playing either on the first attack, first offensive midfield, first close defense or goalie. The breakdown is: four starting attackmen, eight starting offensive midfielders, six starting defensemen and two starting goalies. Why does that add up to 20? Because Emmet Cordrey has started games at both attack and midfield. The only four players to start all 10 games are Cordrey, Michael Sowers, Chris Brown and George Baughan.

* Freshman Cathal Roberts made his first career start in the game against Siena and had three caused turnovers and two ground balls. Roberts also started alongside his brother Aran, a senior, giving Princeton two starting defensemen who were born and raised in Dublin, Ireland.

* Chris Brown is one goal away from matching his season totals of last year. As a freshman, Brown had 23 goals and 15 assists for 38 points. This year, he has 22 goals and 15 assists for 37 points. Brown is also the only player in Division I men's lacrosse with at least 20 career games played and at least one goal in every game of his career.

* Erik Peters had the best game of his career in the win over Stony Brook. Peters came into the game with a 13.15 goals-against average and .475 save percentage and then made 13 saves while allowing four goals, giving him a single-game .765 save percentage and improving his season numbers to 11.92 and .511.

* Andrew Song scored his third career goal in the win over Stony Brook. The sophomore longstick midfielder has three goals, 24 caused turnovers and 86 ground balls for his career.

* Michael Sowers leads the Ivy League and is fourth in Division I in assists per game and is tied for the Ivy lead with Cornell's Jeff Teat and sixth in Division I in points per game.

* Emmet Cordrey's huge senior year has seen him come within one point of tripling his point total for his first three years combined. Cordrey has 24 goals and 14 assists for 38 points; he had 10 goals and three assists for 13 points his first three years. Cordrey is also shooting 24 for 48, a .500 percentage that ranks eighth in Division I.

* Princeton shot 14 for 29 against Stony Brook. The Tigers held the Seawolves to 4 for 45 shooting.