Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/24/18
From Press Releases
On a day that featured 33 goals, the biggest was the 21st. Or maybe the 27th.
Goal No. 21 came after Princeton and Virginia had split the first 20 in the first half, and it came while Princeton was man up early in the third quarter. Virginia, though, got a stop, and freshman goalie Alex Rode threw a pass about 60 yards into the stick of Mike D’Amario, who then flipped it to a wide-open Michael Kraus for a man-down layup.
That goal started a key three-goal run, as No. 6 Virginia outlasted No. 18 and host Princeton 18-15 in front of 1,882 entertained fans at Klockner Stadium.
Goal No. 27 came as time expired in the third quarter, when, off a restart, UVa longstick middie Jared Conners scored, answering an Austin Sims goal and building the lead back to three after three at 15-12. Princeton would get no closer the rest of the way.
Princeton’s season-opening win over Monmouth a week ago featured 17 combined goals, as Princeton won 9-8 in two OT. This time, Princeton and UVa reached the 17-goal mark with 7:31 to play in the first half. It was hardly an up-and-down game, though, with very little in transition and a lot in settled six-on-six situations.
Princeton was led by Phillip Robertson’s (Duke’s LC) three goals and an assist and Michael Sowers’ (Upper Dublin, Mesa Lacrosse/Duke’s LC) one goal and four assists, but the game was the breakout performance for longstick midfielder Andrew Song. The 5-10, 185-pound freshman from outside of Boston was everywhere, with a final line of one goal, three ground balls, two caused turnovers and even two face-off wins, to go along with some great defense on Virginia’s Dox Aitken (Haverford School, Mesa) who didn’t have a point while Song was on him.
NOTES
Philly Connection:
Aitken did finish with a goal and an assist as well as 3 GBs. Also for UVA, freshman Matt Moore (Garnet Valley) had two goals and faceoff specialist Justin Schwenk (Spring-Ford, NXT LC) won 25 of 34 draws. For Princeton, Sowers had a goal, four assists and four groundballs.
* Robertson had three goals on three shots, giving him six goals on six shots through two games and nine goals on 10 shots in his career. Robertson had a perfect one-time shot into the net, off a feed from Chris Brown, in the second quarter.
* Emmet Cordrey came into the game with three career goals. He then had three first-half goals against Virginia.
* Chris Brown followed up his five-point debut with four more points, on a goal and three assists. Austin Sims and Riley Thompson had two goals each.
* Princeton goalie Tyler Blaisdell made 14 saves. He has now seen 105 shots in two games (57 last week against Monmouth, 48 by UVa).
* Virginia hurt Princeton on face-offs, winning nine of the first 10 and 26 of 36 for the day.
* The third quarter was the big one, as UVa outscored Princeton 5-2. The other three quarters were all even: 6-6 in the first, 4-4 in the second, 3-3 in the fourth.
