(Photo Courtesy of Princeton Athletics)
For the second week in a row, the Princeton Tigers knocked off the No. 3-ranked team in the land and give them their first loss of the season. Last week it was the Georgetown Hoyas and this week it was rival Rutgers in the battle for the Tots Mesitrell Cup.
In the end, it was goalie Erik Peters and his career-high 21-save performance that made the difference in the 16-11 victory. Peters stood tall all night, but was especially good in the second half where he made 11 saves. That included a six-save fourth quarter in which Rutgers put nine of their 19 shots on cage.
A defensive-heavy third quarter that saw Rutgers’ Michael Sanguinetti scored the lone goal of the period meant Princeton’s halftime, 11-7, lead was cut to just three (11-8). And, in part due to freshman Coulter Mackesy, the Tigers would never see their lead fall below three goals for the remainder of the contest.
Mackesy, who was making his second start at attack, stood out amongst the rest with four goals and two assists to help lead the way for the Tigers’ offense. Two of those goals came during the fourth quarter. His third saw him freeze Jaryd Jean-Felix with a fake before letting it fly and his fourth saw him put his defender in a spin cycle before stinging the top right corner.
Alex Slusher also had six points four goals and two assists while Chris Brown had a hat trick and one assist. Together the Princeton attack combined for 16 points and caused some real trouble for the Rutgers defense.
Late in the second quarter, Slusher found the back of the net twice consecutively before Brown got one of his own off a Sam English feed on a man-up situation to get the Tigers up by four at the half.
Brian Cameron scored the first goal of the game for Rutgers and the Scarlet Knights remained either ahead by one or within one before the Tigers’ three-goal run to end the half. While they were able to cut the lead to three in the third quarter, scoring the lone goal of that frame, however they were only able to get three more before the final buzzer sounded.
Rutgers outshot Princeton 58-46 and did so 33-19 in the second half. However, the effort to break the damn that was Erik Peters once and for all came up short.
Mitch Bartolo led the Scarlet Knights with a hat trick and Colin Kirst anchored the Rutgers defense with 13 saves.
High Point Holds off Robert Morris
Up 11-5 late in the third quarter, the High Point Panthers were soon tasked with not only holding onto their lead but holding off the Robert Morris comeback. The Colonials scored four unanswered from the 1:32 mark in the third through the 8:34 mark in the fourth to cut the Panthers’ lead to 11-8.
Two more Colonial goals late in the fourth made it a one-goal, 12-11, game. However, a Jaxon Lamb score within the final minute of play all but secured the High Point victory.
Brayden Mayea led the way with six points off five goals and one assists. Asher Nolting had five points off one goal and four assists.
Tagagrt Clark had a hat trick and dished out one assist to lead Robert Morris.
UMBC Knocks off Utah
It’s March and UMBC is back to beating ranked teams. This time it came over No. 20 Utah as the Retrievers secured the 13-10 home victory.
UMBC used a five-goal run in the second quarter to breakaway from what had been a very even matchup thus far and get ahead 7-3 at the half. Utah outscored UMBC 7-6 in the second half, but was never able to take back the lead or tie things up.
Mike Doughty and Nick Dupis each had two goals and one assist to lead the Retrievers.
Josh Stout, Jordan Hyde, and Carson Moyer each had two goals for Utah.
Other Scores
- The Jacksonville Dolphins soared in the snow, beating Bellarmine 16-2 behind six-point outings from Jacob Greiner (4G/2A) and Jackson Intieri (2G/4A).
- Zach Cole went 76% at the dot as Saint Joseph’s beat Towson 11-8.
- JP Ward had seven points (3G/4A) to hell lead Delaware past Marist, 18-9.
- Brendan Nichtern and Reese Burek each had seven-point outings in Army’s 18-12 win over Lafayette.
Lacrosse Bucket 