Princeton Rolls Past Dartmouth into Ivy Tourney
from Princeton Athletic Communications
PRINCETON, N.J. - Fergus Campbell, Ari Sussman
and the rest of the Dartmouth men's lacrosse team certainly got
Princeton's attention as the Tigers stood in the tunnel two weeks
ago at Gillette Stadium to see the Big Green knock off Cornell.
"We watched a bunch of film," Princeton defenseman Chad Wiedmaier
said. "Their goalie [Ferguson] had an incredible game,
twenty-something saves [23]. The offense knew what it had to do
against him."
Then he turned and looked at the Class of 1952 Stadium
scoreboard.
"Sixteen," Wiedmaier said. "Pretty awesome."
Princeton, wary of allowing Dartmouth and Campbell a repeat
performance, instead dominated in all phases of the game en route
to a 16-2 win over the Big Green in front of 1,308. Princeton is
now 50-8 all-time against Dartmouth, including 29-1 in
Princeton.
The win improved Princeton to 9-2 overall, 4-0 in the Ivy League.
It also clinched a berth for the Tigers in the first Ivy League
lacrosse tournament and left Princeton in position to win at least
a share of the Ivy championship with a win in either of its
remaining regular season games, next Saturday at Harvard or May 1
at home against Cornell. The regular-season champion will host the
league tournament, and either Princeton or Cornell would be the
host school by winning its final two league games.
The reason Princeton finds itself as the lone unbeaten in the
league is because of Campbell's 23-save performance in the 8-6 win
over Cornell in the New England Lacrosse Classic, a game that was
followed by Princeton's 9-7 win over Brown.
This time, Campbell didn't make it out of the second quarter, as
Princeton scored four times in the final two minutes of the first
quarter, nine times before Campbell came out after 27 minutes and
ultimatley 11 in the first half, which ended 11-0 Princeton.
Jack McBride tied his career high in points with seven after a
five-goal, two-assist day, and Mike Chanenchuk added three goals
and two assists. Chanenchuk now has 22 goals for his freshman year,
fourth-best all-time at Princeton and three shy of B.J. Prager's
school record. McBride now 99 career points, leaving him one shy of
becoming the 24th player in school history to reach 100.
Of course, it's possible that neither was the most impressive
Tiger, as Wiedmaier hounded Sussman, Dartmouth's leading scorer and
the offensive star against Cornell with four goals, all day,
holding Sussman to just one man-up goal while causing five
turnovers.
The game marked the second straight for Dartmouth this year and the
second straight trip to Class of 1952 Stadium in which it was shut
out, after trailing Yale 4-0 at the break last year and Princeton
10-0 at the break a year ago.
"We haven't had a game where we brought the defense, the offense,
everything together," said Peter Smyth, who won 6 of 8 face-offs
and had a goal and assist. "It was good to have a game like that
today. Once we got possessions with the face-offs and the offense
was scoring goals, we were able to control the game."
Princeton outshot Dartmouth 42-21, had a 41-20 edge in ground balls
and won 16 of 22 face-offs. Tyler Fiorito made seven saves while
allowing two goals in his three quarters in net.
Even after Dartmouth scored the first two goals of the second half,
Princeton ran off the final five of the day. Forest Sonnenfeldt had
his first career multi-goal game, and Jeff Froccaro had a goal, an
assist and eight face-off wins in 12 attempts.
Dartmouth dominated possession time for the first seven minutes of
the first quarter and took the first four shots of the day. McBride
started Princeton off with a goal on the Tigers' first settled
possession, and it became 5-0 at the quarter after four goals came
in a 1:50 span.
It was new territory for the Tigers, whose previous three Ivy wins
were by a combined four goals and whose win over Rutgers Tuesday
night was by two goals. Against Dartmouth Princeton led 13-2 at the
end of the third, and every healthy Princeton player played.
Princeton coach Chris Bates, an All-Ivy attackman at Dartmouth
before graduating in 1990, is now 1-0 against his alma mater with
the Tigers.
