Sandoval's Breakout Game Helps No. 3 Princeton Top Rutgers To Regain The Meistrell Cup

Saturday, March 7

Princeton, N.J.

1:00 PM

Princeton University

5-0

Rutgers

2-4

Rutgers

Princeton University

Tyler Sandoval won 17 of 29 face-offs, had 10 ground balls and scored a goal in the 16-11 win over Rutgers.

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

Sandoval's Breakout Game Helps No. 3 Princeton Top Rutgers To Regain The Meistrell Cup

March 07, 2020 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

Tyler Sandoval had more than his birthday to celebrate after he was as responsible as anyone for returning the Meistrell Cup to Princeton.

Sandoval had a breakout performance on the same day he turned 19, winning 17 of 29 face-offs, picking up 10 ground balls, scoring his first college goal and perhaps most importantly allowing Princeton to put together scoring runs of four goals (second quarter, nice) and six goals (third quarter, thing of beauty). The result was a 16-11 win over Rutgers for the third-ranked Tigers, who improved to 5-0 on the young season heading into Ivy League games on the next three Saturdays.

Princeton now leads the all-time series with the Scarlet Knights 63-31-3 as the teams met for the 98^th time.

"We knew this was going to be another big challenge for us, and it was," said Princeton head coach Matt Madalon. "Rutgers is an outstanding, well-coached team, and we knew they would be prepared for us. They had a very good game plan, and I thought we handled it well. We still have a lot to work on, but we're improving. I'm very happy about where we are. I thought Tyler was tremendous, as were the guys on the wings. We played with a lot of tenacity, and getting face-off wins allowed us to build momentum."

After Rutgers scored the first two goals of the third quarter to tie it at 6-6, Princeton sprinted away with six goals in a 3:57 stretch, the last two of which came from sophomore speedster Jake Stevens 18 seconds apart that made it 12-6. Sandoval won the face-off after all six goals as the Tigers played the prettiest lacrosse you can hope to see.

It was the Tigers' first-half defense that kept Rutgers from taking a lead at intermission that set the tone of the day. The Scarlet Knights were patient offensively in the first half and took almost all of their possessions to late in the shot clock, but Princeton matched that with patient defense, solid one-on-one play and some huge saves from Erik Peters, who again played extremely well. Rutgers took 21 of its 32 shots in the first half, but Princeton time and again got the stops it needed to prevent Rutgers from opening up some breathing room.

As a result, Rutgers was held to four first-half goals despite the possession time advantage, and Princeton would shut the Scarlet Knights out for the final 14:12 of the second quarter, after the visitors had grabbed a 4-2 lead. That led to the first big offensive run of four straight goals that put the Tigers up 6-4 at halftime.

The first offensive midfield unit came in averaging six goals per game, and that group combined this time for seven, as Connor McCarthy and Alexander Vardaro had three each and Alex Slusher had one. Vardaro's second of the day, a rocket from up top off a feed from Chris Brown, put Princeton up 5-4 in the second quarter.

Here's the Vardaro goal to put Princeton up 5-4. pic.twitter.com/xquWz4lJWR
— Princeton Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) March 7, 2020

Michael Sowers led Princeton with five points on three goals and two assists. He also become the 16^th player in Division I history to over 300 career points, as he now has 302 on 121 goals and 181 assists for his career.

Brown had two goals and two assists as he stretched his streak of consecutive games with at least one goal to 32, as he continues to be the only Division I junior or senior with at least one in every game of his career.

This by the way was the Sowers assist to Brown for Sowers' 300th career point. pic.twitter.com/cOAwTR6inJ
— Princeton Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) March 7, 2020

As for the defense, Princeton once again got strong performances from all over, including three caused turnovers from freshman Ben Finlay and two caused turnovers and three ground balls from George Baughan. Princeton turned the ball over an uncharacteristic 20 times, more five more than the season average that had the Tigers ranked ninth in Division I coming in, but the defense time and again kept Rutgers out of the goal.

Next up for Princeton is the Ivy League opener against Penn this Saturday at home, followed by a trip to Yale.

"Every game in the league is going to tough, no matter who the teams are," Madalon said. "We will hope to get the areas we need to work on buttoned up before next week. We're happy to be 5-0 obviously, but we have to keep doing what we've been doing, which is being focused and being confident. This is a great win for us. Now it's on to the next test."