Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 5/5/24
From Press Release
Coulter Mackesy split two defenders who were draped all over him, came above the goal line extended, backhanded the ball into the vacant cage — and then stood up and flexed to his bench. And hey, while he might not have the largest biceps on his team, he could have carried every one of his Princeton men’s lacrosse teammates off of Schoellkopf Field and straight into the NCAA tournament.
That is where Princeton is now headed, for the third straight year, after taking down Penn, 18-11, today in the Ivy League tournament championship game at Cornell, earning the league’s automatic bid. It’s Princeton’s second straight Ivy tournament title, and the Tigers will now find out their NCAA tournament pairing at 9:30 tonight.
Not that Mackesy had to do it himself. Mackesy had three goals and four assists, but this was a total team effort, once again. Andrew McMeekin (Episcopal Academy) won 18 of 32 face-offs with 11 more groundballs and three caused turnovers, running his two-game totals to 38 for 60 with 28 groundballs to earn tournament Most Outstanding Player honors.
Everywhere up and down the field, though, there were Tigers who made huge impacts. Pick a spot. Defense? Cooper Kistler had three caused turnovers and three groundballs, and Colin Mulshine once again dominated his matchup, holding Penn’s Tynan Walsh to only a single goal. Pace Billings had two caused turnovers. The shortsticks were everywhere. In goal? Michael Gianforcaro (Culver Academy/Resident of Lincoln University/Duke’s LC) made 11 saves.
Tommy Barnds picked the right day to have a career-high three goals, a number matched by Sean Cameron. Chad Palumbo and Tucker Wade had two each, as Princeton got 12 of its 18 goals from the midfield. Colin Burns had three goals on attack. Nate Kabiri had four assists for the second straight game.
Ben Smith led Penn with four goals while Cam Rubin tallied three and Griffin Scane had two.
Princeton jumped out quickly, going up 3-0 on goals from Palumbo, Burns and Quinn Kramer. Penn cut it to 4-3 after one, but Princeton built the lead back to 6-3 when Barnds scored twice on a non-releasable penalty. The lead was 8-4 with a little more than two minutes to go in the first half before Penn scored three quickly, making it 8-7 at the break.
It wasn’t that dissimilar to Friday’s semifinal, when Princeton broke a 5-5 halftime tie to beat Yale 14-10. This time, Princeton got goals from Wade, Cameron and Lukas Stanat in the first three minutes of the third, and Yale got no closer than two after that, the final time at 13-11 with 1:36 left in the third.
Princeton, though, scored the final five of the game, including two huge goals in the final 13 seconds of the quarter, first Wade from Mackesy and then, after yet another McMeekin FO win, from Mackesy with two seconds to go.
Princeton’s All-Tournament selections were McMeekin, Mackesy, Mulshine, Palumbo and Gianforcaro.
