Princeton Falls to Harvard, Creating Five-Way Tie For First

Saturday, April 23

Cambridge, Mass.

1:00 PM

Princeton University

9-3, 3-2Ivy

Harvard

8-3, 3-2Ivy

Princeton

Harvard

Coulter Mackesy had four goals in the 19-16 loss to Harvard.

Photo by: Erica Denhoff

Princeton Falls to Harvard, Creating Five-Way Tie For First

April 23, 2022 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

The Ivy League men's lacrosse race is officially a mess. With one weekend to go, there are five teams tied for first at 3-2, and the host team, let alone the field, for the Ivy League tournament is far from set.

Princeton fell to Harvard 19-16 Saturday afternoon in Cambridge, and along with Brown's win over Cornell, that left those four teams plus Yale all at 3-2.

Next weekend's Ivy schedule has Cornell at Princeton, Harvard at Yale and Dartmouth at Brown. The winners of the first two of those games will tie for the league championship, as will Brown with a win.

There are so many possibilities for tiebreakers related to being the host team and the teams that make the field that trying to figure it all out will only cause headaches. So far, only Dartmouth has been eliminated and somewhat shockingly, it appears (quite unofficially) that no team has clinched a spot.

Princeton can get a share of the championship and host the tournament, and it's also possible that the Tigers may not make the league tournament, depending on what happens. The same, by the way, applies to Harvard.

Should Brown defeat Dartmouth, then the winner of the Princeton-Cornell game is in the tournament and the other team is not. If Princeton beats Cornell, then it is definitely in the tournament (with a share of the league title) and would host with that win plus a Yale win over Harvard and Brown win over Dartmouth.

A Princeton win over Cornell, with wins by Yale and Brown, puts the tournament in Princeton.

As for the NCAA tournament, Princeton's wins over Georgetown, Rutgers, Brown, Boston University and Penn put the Tigers in very, very strong position.

As for the game itself, Princeton led 9-4 in the second quarter and had leads of 13-11 and 14-12 in the fourth quarter before the Crimson surged at the end. Coulter Mackesy and Alex Slusher led Princeton with four goals each, and Chris Brown had a two-goal, three-assist day.