Princeton Travels To Take On Harvard

Saturday, March 23

Cambridge, Mass.

12:00 PM

Princeton University

Harvard

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Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

March 22, 2024 | Men's Lacrosse

PRINCETON (4-3, 0-1 Ivy League; No. 13 Inside Lacrosse, No. 13 USILA, No. 13 USA Lacrosse Magazine)
at
HARVARD (6-1, 0-1 Ivy League; No. 16 Inside Lacrosse, No. 14 USILA, No. 14 USA Lacrosse Magazine)

Saturday, March 23 • noon
Jordan Field • Cambridge, Mass.
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The lower ranked team will beat the higher ranked team when Princeton plays at Harvard this weekend. Also, in the same game, the higher ranked team will beat the lower ranked team.

How is this possible? It all depends on the poll you like. Of the three major polls, Princeton is ranked ahead of Harvard in one (Inside Lacrosse), while Harvard is ahead of Princeton in two (USILA, USA Lacrosse Magazine).

Does any of that matter? Other than to suggest that these are two relatively evenly matched teams, no. Of greater importance is that this game also matches two teams who lost close games last weekend in their Ivy League openers.

Princeton at Harvard
Five storylines

Ivy openers
Princeton and Harvard are both 0-1 in the Ivy League after last week's losses to Cornell (for Princeton) and Yale (for Harvard).

Princeton won it Ivy opener in 2022 but did not make the Ivy League tournament. The Tigers did reach the NCAA Final Four that year, even without playing in the ILT.

A year ago, Princeton lost its Ivy opener and then came back not only to reach the Ivy tournament but also to win it.

The other Ivy games this weekend are Penn (1-0) at Dartmouth (0-0) and Yale at Cornell.

Fresh faces
Princeton is the only team in Division I with three different freshmen who have at least one game with at least four goals. Princeton's three freshmen to have done so are Colin Burns (against Monmouth), Nate Kabiri (against Maryland) and Tucker Wade (against Cornell).

Wade began the season with no goals on eight shots in the first five games. He now has six goals on 13 shots in the last two games.

Class goals
Princeton has scored 88 goals this season. The breakdown by class is this:
Freshmen – 36
Sophomores – 21
Juniors - 25
Seniors - 5

Midfield scoring
Princeton's offensive midfielders combined to score 11 of Princeton's 14 goals against Cornell last week.

In the first four games of the season, Princeton had 34 goals from its attack and 12 from its offensive midfielders. In the three games since, Princeton has had 21 goals from its offensive midfield and 12 from its attack.

Youth movement
Princeton's top six on offense consists of three freshmen (Colin Burns and Nate Kabiri on attack, Tucker Wade in the midfield), two sophomores (Chad Palumbo and John Dunphey in the midfield) and one junior (Coulter Mackesy on attack).

Princeton has had six freshmen who have had at least four games with at least three goals. Of those six, three are current Tigers: Colin Burns and Nate Kabiri, who have done so already this season in just six games, and Coulter Mackesy, who did so in 2022.

The others were Michael Sowers (2017), Mike Chanenchuk (2010) and Jesse Hubbard (1995).

The last time Princeton started two freshmen on attack was 1995, with Jon Hess and Chris Massey. Hubbard played midfield that season before moving onto the attack line the next three years.

Coulter Updates
Coulter Mackesy has scored 99 goals in his career, leaving him one away from becoming the 15^th Princeton player to reach the 100-mark. Should he reach the mark, Mackesy, who reached the 50-assist mark last week at Rutgers, would become just the sixth player in Princeton history with at least 100 goals and 50 assists, joining: Michael Sowers, Mike MacDonald, Tom Schreiber, Chris Brown and Wick Sollers.

Also, Mackesy has played 38 career games. Only two Princeton players have ever reached 100 goals in fewer than 40 games: Sollers (35) and Jesse Hubbard (38).

Other notes

* Princeton has scored 28 goals the last two weeks, of which 19 have been unassisted. Princeton had an assist on 63 percent of its goals for the season prior to the Rutgers game.

* Face-off specialist Andrew McMeekin is one below .500 for the year (78 for 157), and he also has five caused turnovers off of face-off losses. The sophomore has scored a goal in each of the last two games as well.

* Michael Bath has 10 caused turnovers in the last two games, including a program single-game record of six at Rutgers.

* Princeton is playing on a Saturday for only the second time this season.

* Colin Burns has 13 goals on 27 shots, giving him a .481 shooting percentage that leads the Ivy League and is 12th in Division I.

* Sophomore Chad Palumbo has 10 goals and five assists this year after having two goals all of last year.

* Princeton has played seven games and scored 14 or 15 goals in five of them.

* Chad Palumbo and Andrew McMeekin scored goals five seconds apart in the third quarter against Cornell, equaling the school record for the shortest elapsed time between goals. Nate Kabiri and Coulter Mackesy scored five seconds apart earlier this season against North Carolina as well.

* Michael Gianforcaro has two career games with 20 or more saves (20 against Harvard in 2023, 20 against Maryland this season). From 2008 through the present, Gianforcaro has as many games with at least 20 saves as every other Princeton goalie combined (Erik Peters with 21 vs. Rutgers in 2022, Tyler Blaisdell with 20 against Johns Hopkins in 2016). The last Princeton goalie with multiple career games of at least 20 saves, by the way, was Trevor Tierney, who had two such games as a junior in 2000.

* Princeton has won six NCAA championships and played in 11 Final Fours, most recently reaching Championship Weekend in 2022. Princeton also played in last year's NCAA tournament, falling in the opening round 13-12 at Penn State.