Princeton Heads To Dartmouth For Key Ivy Matchup

PRINCETON (4-5, 2-1 Ivy League) vs. DARTMOUTH (6-3, 1-2 Ivy League)
Saturday, April 15 • 1 p.m.
Scully-Fahey Field • Hanover, N.H.
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The Ivy League season has three weekends remaining, with a total of nine conference games to be played. All seven teams are still very much in the hunt for the four sports in the league tournament, which itself is a mere three weeks away (at Columbia).

Who will be there? The trajectory changes a bit with each result. Princeton heads to Dartmouth looking to add to its chances. To do so, the Tigers will have to do something that has proven to be difficult so far this league season.

Princeton vs. Dartmouth
Five Storylines

No place like home
The home team has won 10 of the 12 Ivy League games played to date, including going 3-0 each of the last three weekends. The first weekend saw the visitors go 2-1, with a Cornell win at Yale and a Harvard win at Brown, but that's been it since.

The home team is 3-0 in Princeton's three league games, as the Tigers lost at Penn and then bounced back with back-to-back wins over Yale and Brown at home.

Home teams went 13-8 a year ago in the 21 league games, for a winning percentage of .619. This year, home teams have a .833 winning percentage to date.

In non-league games involving Ivy teams, the home team is 24-16.

This weekend's Ivy games have Princeton at Dartmouth, Brown at Yale and Penn at Harvard.

Ivy standings
Cornell, who is Army this weekend, is currently 3-1 in the league, with Princeton and Harvard next at 2-1. Penn is 2-2, followed by 1-2 Dartmouth and Brown and 1-3 Yale.

Should Princeton defeat Dartmouth, it would have three wins and hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Big Green, Brown and Yale. Should Dartmouth beat Princeton, then Princeton would have a 2-2 record but not hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Big Green or Penn.

Series history
Princeton leads the all-time series 59-9, including a 35-1 record in Princeton and a 24-8 record in Hanover. The Tigers have won the last seven meetings between the two, including most recently a 12-10 win in Princeton a year ago in a game that Dartmouth led 10-9 with 12:27 to go after a 5-0 run before the Tigers scored three times in two minutes for the win.

Neither team scored in the final 10 minutes of the game. Princeton set a school single-game record with 18 caused turnovers.

Goal-ter Mackesy
Coulter Mackesy leads Princeton in goals with 33 and points with 47. He has at least three goals in eight of nine games this season and at least one goal in 16 straight games.

Mackesy, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Week winner and an addition to the Tewaaraton Watchlist, also has 90 career points, leaving him 10 away from becoming the 40^th player in program history to reach the 100 mark.

Mackesy has more than doubled his goals per game total from last year, when he scored 1.75 per game. This year, Mackesy averages 3.67 per game, seventh in Division I; he is sixth in Division I in points per game (5.22).

Turnovers
Princeton turns the ball over 13.78 times per game, which is the lowest number in the Ivy League and the fourth-lowest number in Division I. Dartmouth ranks eighth in Division I in opponents clearing percentage at .807, while Princeton clears the ball at just under 90 percent.

Dartmouth forces twice as many failed clears per game (4.2) than Princeton averages failed clears per game (2.1).

Other notes
Alexander Vardaro, who has 104 career points and became the 39^th player in program history to reach triple figures, has 16 goals and 17 assists. With four more goals and three more assists, Vardaro would have the 36^th 20/20 season in program history … Princeton is 4-0 when scoring at least 14 goals and 0-5 when scoring 13 or fewer … Michael Gianforcaro is second in the Ivy League and 10^th in Division I with a .552 save percentage. Princeton leads the league and is sixth in Division I in saves per game, with both Gianforcaro and Griffen Rakower … Pace Billings made his first start since being injured against Georgetown in the game against Syracuse. Alex Slusher also returned against Syracuse after missing two games due to injury … Jack Ringhofer has made three starts on attack, going from one goal (against Yale) to two goals (against Brown) to two goals and an assist (against Syracuse). He and Lukas Stanat have combined for nine goals and three assists as starting attackmen the last three weeks … Cathal Roberts leads Princeton with 13 caused turnovers, including four against Syracuse last week, making him the first Princeton player since 2019 with four in one game … Ben Finlay is the only current Princeton player who has started every game of his career … Princeton is averaging 8.78 assists per game, which leads the Ivy League and is eighth in Division I. It's also 1.22 more assists per game than Princeton averaged a year ago. Princeton is also scoring 64 percent of its goals off of assists this season after scoring 51 percent of its goals off assists last year.

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Pace Billings

Ben Finlay

Michael Gianforcaro

Coulter Mackesy

Griffen Rakower

Jack Ringhofer

Cathal Roberts

Alex Slusher

Lukas Stanat

Alexander Vardaro

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