M. Lacrosse Heads South To Face No. 1 Princeton

After defeating its first Ivy League opponent of the season, the Harvard men's lacrosse team is set to take on its toughest.

The Crimson (6-3, 1-2 Ivy) will head south to New Jersey to visit Princeton on Saturday. The Tigers (7-1, 3-0) are currently the top-ranked team in the country, having regained the No. 1 spot in the US Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association last week for the first time since late March.

A Harvard win this weekend would be, put mildly, improbable. Princeton has won 34 straight league contests and has outscored its three Ivy opponents this year by a combined score of 47-14. The Tigers are one of the only two teams undefeated in the league. The other, No. 12 Cornell, destroyed the Crimson last Saturday, 16-3.

What's more, Princeton has never lost an Ivy League game in the Class of 1952 Stadium. The Tigers are 16-0 all-time in its home field.

Oh yes, and the Crimson have lost ten straight games to the perennial power.

All in all, the Princeton game presents the Crimson with a daunting challenge, but sophomore attacker Matt Primm feels that the team is as ready as it has ever been.

"We feel that we're a more consistent team now," Primm said. "We have a goood system, and the guys are starting to understand the rules better at this stage."

The team's win Wednesday night against Brown proved, at the very least, that the Crimson now has what it takes to pull out close games. Harvard was deadlocked with Brown 4-4 two nights ago before shutting out the Bears in the final quarter for a 7-4 win.

"We proved there that all of the hard work and conditioning we've done paid off," Primm said. "It was two teams coming off hard losses, and we were able to take control near the end."

In order to have even a shot against the Tigers, the Crimson will have to control the ball from the very beginning. Princeton features an incredibly deep and balanced scoring attack. Among the threats is freshman Ryan Boyle, the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Week. Boyle leads the team with 16 assists and 27 points overall, and poured in six assists in a game against Brown a week ago. The assist total was the highest for a Princeton attacker in eight years.

Junior attackman B.J. Prager enters the game with a remarkable 27-game goal streak. Senior Matt Striebal is also among the league's scoring leaders.

With that kind of depth, the key to stopping Princeton is making sure none of the Tiger attackers get the opportunity to score at all.

"We need to possess the ball really well," Primm said. "They have so many weapons that we can't afford to make any careless errors. If we do, they'll take advantage."

The Crimson has as much of a chance as anyone at stopping a scoring attack that routinely puts double-digits up on the board. As of last week, the Crimson was second in the country in goals allowed per game with a 6.00 average.

This number came despite a general inability to win face-offs. On Wednesday night, Harvard showed signs of turning that trend around, taking 11 of 14 out of the restart against the Bears.