Mackesy's Eight Goals, Finlay's Lockdown D Lead Princeton Past Yale 23-10

Saturday, March 25

Princeton, N.J.

1:00 PM

Princeton University

3-4, 1-1Ivy

Yale

3-3, 0-2Ivy

Yale

Princeton

Coulter Mackesy scores one of his eight goals in Princeton's 23-10 win over Yale.

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

Mackesy's Eight Goals, Finlay's Lockdown D Lead Princeton Past Yale 23-10

March 25, 2023 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

Coulter Mackesy scored. Then he scored again. And then again. And then again after that. And the he scored one more time. His day wasn't over with his fifth goal, but Princeton's losing streak was.

Mackesy scored five straight goals to jumpstart a struggling Princeton offense and then added three more and two assists as Princeton erupted past Yale 23-10 Saturday afternoon. Mackesy's eight goals tied him for the third most ever by a Princeton player in a single game, and the 23 goals that the team scored were the most the Tigers have ever had against Yale in the 108 meetings in the series.

The win snapped a four-game Tiger losing streak, including back-to-back games that went to overtime, including last week at Penn in the Ivy opener. Princeton scored once in the final 26:47 of that game and then didn't score at all in the first 7:49 against Yale, by which time the Tigers trailed 1-0 in this game and had scored just one goal in nearly 35 minutes.

ONE, TWO, THREE!!!

Mackesy gets his third to make it 3-1. 3:32 left in Q1. pic.twitter.com/TDejV4Zphl
— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) March 25, 2023

Princeton was also playing with two first-time starters on attack in sophomores Jack Ringhofer and Lukas Stanat, after injuries to Alex Slusher and Braedon Saris forced a reshuffling of the lineup. Princeton needed something — and that's when Mackesy exploded.

That's when Mackesy exploded. He scored five straight goals in the next nine minutes, erasing the early Yale lead and putting Princeton up 5-1. He followed that with an assist on a Ringhofer goal to make it 6-1, and then Beau Pederson and Stanat made it 8-1 with 9:48 to go in the half. Even when Yale answered with two straight, Princeton came right back, scoring four more — including Mackesy's sixth — to make it a 12-3 game at intermission. Yale never got closer than seven in the second half.

As extraordinary as Mackesy was, he might not have been the Player of the Game for Princeton. That honor might have belonged to Ben Finlay, who shut out Yale's Matt Brandau, who previously had scored at least one goal in all 45 games of his career. Or, for that matter, maybe it was Jacob Stoebner, who shut out Yale's Leo Johnson while causing three turnovers.

OH MY GINDER. 15-5 TIGERS. pic.twitter.com/Zx05YGY644
— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) March 25, 2023

Princeton played its most complete game since its 14-10 win over Yale in last year's NCAA quarterfinals, a game that ended a six-game losing streak to the Bulldogs. This time around, Princeton got contributions from everywhere, including three caused turnovers and five ground balls from Michael Bath, four goals from Christian Ronda, 15 of 29 facing-off with a goal and six ground balls for Koby Ginder, 14 saves from Michael Gianforcaro, two goals from Pederson and one goal and four assists from Alexander Vardaro. Stanat finished with two goals and one assist.

The Tigers managed 39 shots for the game against Penn, which ended 9-8. Against Yale Princeton put up 37 in the first half alone and finished with 66.