Princeton Weekly Bulletin, April 13, 1998
Fastest game on two legs
Five NCAA championships have made lacrosse Princeton's "signature sport in the '90s"
By Ben Kessler
Notwithstanding the major accomplishments of several other athletic teams, lacrosse has become Princeton's signature sport in the 1990s. The women's team, led by Coach Chris Sailer, visited the NCAA Final Four for five consecutive years, culminating in a national championship in 1994. And the men, under Coach Bill Tierney, have been virtual rulers of their roost, winning four of the last six national championships and remaining unbeaten for 29 games until the streak was snapped at Virginia last month.
Lacrosse has been billed as the fastest game on two feet. It requires of its players no particular size, but favors the quick and the rugged. The men's and women's games are essentially similar in the sense that a ball is carried and passed from stick to stick toward a goal six feet high and six feet wide.
Men vs. women
However, the men's version is a contact sport in which players routinely smash into each other; among women, the only allowable contact is stick-on-stick. The men wear helmets and pads; as in football, we know the players primarily by their numbers. The on-field personas of the women, on the other hand, are more evident.
Another crucial difference: the men's playing field is strictly delineated, while the women's field is technically boundless -- the ball is judged out of play by a referee. Therefore, the men's game progresses through tightly prescribed zones of action, while the women's game is more free-flowing.
In lacrosse, possession of the ball is of paramount importance. Unlike many other sports, in which the ball changes hands after a score, lacrosse initiates and resumes play with a face-off in the center of the field. Women "draw" standing upright, the ball placed in the crook of their crossed sticks, with each contestant hoping to propel the ball in the air to one of several teammates arrayed around a circle. Men face off crouched on the ground like wrestlers. No small part of the Princeton men's success in recent years has been due to the proficiency of one or two midfield specialists -- designated pit bulls, as it were, whose sole purpose is to scoop the ball out of the rough and tumble of the fray.
Coaching strategy
Aside from the goalkeeper, a men's team consists of nine players divided into three groups of three: attackers, midfielders and defenders. Attackers and defenders are constrained by the midfield line; they must remain in their respective halves of the field. Midfielders, on the other hand, roam the entire field, playing offense or defense depending on which team has the ball. Consequently, midfielders are substituted frequently. A good deal of coaching strategy involves sending in different combinations of midfielders to exploit a given situation. Defenders are distinguished by their long sticks, which they use to fend off attackers' forays and attempt to prod loose possession of the ball.
The women, 12 players including the goalie, have traditionally had full run of the field, regardless of position. Offensive and defensive positions have obscure names, such as First Home, Cover Point and Third Man, although one suspects these are vestiges of a kinder, gentler sport.
In recent years, many teams have tended to swarm all 11 field players deep into the offensive end, obviating conventional positions and creating congestion in front of the goal. This season, as an experimental countermeasure, the NCAA has instituted a 30-yard restraining line, behind which four defenders must remain. The new rule effectively transforms the action into a seven-on-seven match-up at either end of the field. This restriction may turn to Princeton's advantage, since Coach Sailer has long stressed ball control and team defense.
More questions than answers
The women's team has entered this season with something to prove; last year's results were so mixed as to yield more questions than answers. On one hand, there was a share of the Ivy League title; on the other, a mediocre overall record and a clear drop-off from the elite status that Princeton had claimed for several years. For the first time since 1991, they did not participate in the NCAA playoffs.
Several factors combined to deny the female Tigers their customary spot in post-season play. The nucleus of the previous year's team that played mega-champion University of Maryland to a hair's breadth of a win in the national semifinals, graduated with the Class of 1996. Cristi Samaras, most talented of the returning players, opted to take a year off; her older sister Cory, a key defender, damaged a knee, ending her season after it had barely begun. Illness and injury hampered the play of others. Coach Sailer had no choice but to put many untested players on the field at once.
The upside of this situation was that several young players gained valuable experience and learned to work together as a unit. Providing leadership for this group are senior captains Melissa Cully and Brent McCallister. Cully is a sharp-eyed passer who will direct the offense, while McCallister is a crafty attacker. The team's fortunes have undoubtedly been bolstered by the return of the Samaras sisters. Cory has a reputation for finding the shortest path to the center of action and arriving in a particularly insistent manner. Cristi is a marvelous stick-handler who may, by the end of her time at Princeton, rewrite every school scoring record.
Enviable problem
The men's team has a more enviable problem: the rest of the sport will be gunning for them as they attempt to win a third straight national championship. The attack combination of Jon Hess, Chris Massey and Jesse Hubbard was renowned even before the three stepped onto the field for this, their final season. Hess is the field general, dishing feeds from behind the net; Massey is a quick-footed master of the "spin-dodge"; Hubbard possesses the most feared outside shot in the college game. Less celebrated but no less effective is a defensive corps led by senior Christian Cook. Midfielders Lorne Smith, who made the All-America team last year as a sophomore, and sophomore Josh Sims are scoring threats who compliment the front three attackers.
As the season began, goalkeeper was the team's biggest question mark, since a three-year starter had to be replaced. This is, perhaps, the most psychologically demanding position in collegiate sport: one must constantly face a small, hard ball traveling at tremendous speed. Even the very best goalies fail a third of the time. However, junior Corey Popham has emerged as a capable performer in the early going. Other early season concerns are in the midfield, where several experienced players graduated, especially in the crucial face-off spot.
Always a factor in the Tiger equation is the formidable sideline presence of Coach Tierney, who expresses himself in no uncertain terms when he begs to differ with officials or chooses to admonish one of his errant players.
Current records are 6-1 for the women and 5-1 for the men, as of April 7. After opening their season with a 5-0 record, the women suffered their first loss on April 3 to the University of Virginia. Since their early-season defeat (also by Virginia), the men's team has won four straight. Both teams continue to hover near the top of the national rankings.