No. 3 Princeton Toughs Out 12-10 Win Over Dartmouth

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The last caused turnover of the day – Princeton's 18th – broke the school record for one game and at the same time finally, finally broke the spirit of the Dartmouth men's lacrosse team.

It came with less than a minute to go, courtesy of George Baughan, who made one last takeaway check to push the ball across the end line. Before that, Dartmouth had the ball, and there was nobody on the visitor bench who didn't see this scenario about to unfold: goal, face-off win, goal, overtime.

Instead, Erik Peters made a save (his 15^th) and Baughan had the takeaway. Once the ball was cleared, Princeton ran out the clock and exhaled on a 12-10 win over Dartmouth, in front of 1,350 at Sherrerd Field.

One more caused turnover from George Baughan, helping to preserve the Princeton victory. The final score is Princeton 12, Dartmouth 10. pic.twitter.com/vPxW3kmYHn
— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) April 16, 2022

The win improved third-ranked Princeton to 9-2 overall and 3-1 in the Ivy League. Dartmouth fell to 4-7 overall and 0-4 in the league, with a two-goal loss to Princeton and an earlier one-goal loss to Cornell.

With Brown's win over Yale and Penn's win over Harvard, the league enters the final two weekends without having any of the four spots in the Ivy tournament clinched. Princeton and Cornell are tied for first at 3-1, and if either wins its final two games (they play each other on April 30 in Princeton), they that team would host the league tournament as the No. 1 seed.

In the crazy world of Ivy League men's lacrosse in 2022, nothing that happens one week seems to impact what happens the next. To that end, Dartmouth was coming off a 23-6 loss to Yale and yet looked every bit the part of one of the league's five teams in the Top 10 in the rankings. In fact, the Big Green rallied from four goals down in the third quarter to take a 10-9 lead after scoring five times in less than five minutes, winning the face-off after each of those goals.

Suddenly down one with 12:27 to play, the Tigers showed some grit, finally winning a face-off and answering the Big Green goal with one by Chris Brown to tie it with 31 seconds later. Within another two minutes, Brown and Alexander Vardaro scored, and it was 12-10 with 10:10 left. Princeton never scored another goal to put Dartmouth away, and Dartmouth never scored one to put even more pressure on the Tigers.

Brown had two goals, giving him 96 for his career, and three assists, giving him 10 of those in his last two games. Sam English had three goals and two assists, and Alex Slusher had another three-goal game of his own.

The game was 5-5 at intermission, but Jake Stevens had a fabulous goal off the second-half face-off to put the Tigers ahead. By the middle of the third it was a 9-5 Tiger lead, but Dartmouth then ripped off those five straight.

Um. Beau Pederson. pic.twitter.com/O6QXilxPqk
— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) April 16, 2022

This game, though, was won by Princeton's ability to cause turnovers, 18 of them, to be exact. There were 10 different players who had at least one, led by three each from Beau Pederson and Andrew Song and two each from Baughan, Pace Billings, Ben Finlay and Luke Crimmins. Other than the five-goal run, any time Dartmouth tried to get into an offensive rhythm, Princeton took it away.

Nate Davis and George Prince had three goals each to lead the Big Green. Daniel Hincks made 15 saves before being replaced by Mason Morel after the Tiger run in the fourth quarter, and Morel made a big save to keep it a two-goal game.

Next up for Princeton is a trip to Harvard, where a win clinches an Ivy tournament spot. Should Princeton lose that game, it would still be guaranteed a spot in the field of four with a win the following weekend against Cornell.

In this league in 2022, though, there is no looking ahead. As Princeton's game against Dartmouth reminded anyone who watched it, all there is for each team in this league is the next possession.

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