Tigers rally to top Virginia on Tierney goal
By: Bob Nuse
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The past 10 years have provided some great memories for the Princeton University men’s lacrosse team. But the best may have come Saturday afternoon, as the Tigers found yet another way to win and advanced to the NCAA tournament championship game for the fourth time in the past five years.
The Tigers, who were seeded third and had dropped an earlier regular-season meeting with Virginia by seven goals, stunned the Cavaliers, 12-11, at Byrd Stadium at the University of Maryland. With the win, Princeton advanced to Monday’s championship game, where it will meet the only other team it has lost to this season, Syracuse. The Orangemen advanced to the title game with a 14-12 win over Johns Hopkins.
“We’ve had a lot of great victories at Princeton over the last 10 years,” said Princeton coach Bill Tierney, whose team got the winning goal from his son, Brendan, with just over two minutes left in the game. “But because of the previous game and the beating we took, as well as the injury to B.J. (Prager) and the fact that this was a team that wasn’t supposed to win, this one ranks right up there with any of them.”
Considering this comes from a coach whose team has won five national championships since 1992, that’s pretty good company. But the way the Tigers won Saturday certainly gave Tierney reason to feel the way he did.
The Tigers trailed, 6-3, in the second quarter and 7-5 at the half. They were still down, 9-7, at the start of the fourth quarter after some brilliant saves by their goalie, Trevor Tierney, had kept them in the game. But Princeton outscored the Cavs, in the final quarter to secure the win.
Princeton had tied the score at 11-11 on a goal by Chris Harrington with just over five minutes to play. The Tigers controlled the face-off and eventually got the game-winner from Brendan Tierney.
“They were paying a lot of attention to Josh (Sims), and Josh White made a great and I was fortunate to be there and was able to put it in,” said Brendan, who scored a pair of goals in the win.
Freshman Sean Hartofilis led the Tigers with five goals, while Josh Sims added three, including the 100th of his career.
Saturday’s game with Syracuse will be a rematch of a regular-season played April 23, when the Orangemen handed the Tigers a 16-4 loss.