Injuries force men's lax to test depth of talent pool

With the dawn of the Ivy League season on the horizon, the men's lacrosse team is facing a sort of identity crisis. The defending champions of the Ancient Eight have produced four different performances in their four games. Complicating matters have been injuries to two strong components of the Tiger midfield: junior Rob Torti and sophomore Dan Clark.

In the team's second game of the season, against defending national champion Virginia, Torti hurt his hand early in the contest. He played the remainder of the game, but subsequent X-rays determined that he had suffered a hairline fracture.

On an extremely young Princeton squad, Torti provided the Tigers (3-1) with some much needed experience.

"Rob is the only junior who played substantial minutes in the '98 championship run," head coach Bill Tierney said. "Plus, he's a strong, confident player for us."

Torti scored 10 goals in each of his first two seasons, despite being slowed by an ankle injury for most of the 1999 season and being a freshman in 1998. His fearsome outside shot punishes opposing defenses that sink in toward the goal, leaving him uncovered.

Clark, on the other hand, is more of a dodging, slashing midfielder. Though he played sparingly his freshman year — netting one goal on the season — Clark was off to a flying start this season, scoring in each of the team's first three games.

"Last year, being a freshman, Dan didn't get as much playing time," senior midfielder and captain Chris Berrier said. "This year it looked like he had really grown as a player. He looked very comfortable playing offense. It's a shame because he was just starting to hit his stride."

Against Rutgers, all of this came to a crashing halt. On an attempted clear, Clark received a pass and was simultaneously blindsided by an onrushing Scarlet Knight. The hit caught Clark in an awkward position, and resulted in a slightly separated shoulder — though originally it was feared that he had broken his collarbone.

"Sometimes life throws a curveball at you. When all is going great you get punched in the face, and that's what happened to Danny," Tierney said.

Faced with these injuries, however, the Tigers have not had to break their stride.

"Fortunately we're blessed this year with a really deep team," Berrier said. "We have a ton of midfielders who are really good. It's not going to be one or two guys who fill their spots. I think it's going to be the team having to pick it up in general."

The Rutgers game was a clear demonstration of the Tigers' depth. Despite losing Clark in the early going, several Tigers increased the quality of their play on the offensive end.

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"What we found this past week is that [junior attackman] Chris Harrington is really playing well," Tierney said.

The Tiger coach was also impressed with the play of freshman Josh White, who found the back of the net twice against the Scarlet Knights after moving from his usual attack spot to the midfield. In addition, junior midfielder Matt Bailer — Princeton's face-off specialist — has received more playing time as a regular midfielder.

Both Clark and Torti are expected to return to action within a couple of weeks. Before then, however, the Tigers will open their 46th Ivy lacrosse season.

Princeton opens league play with a surprising Yale squad this weekend. The Ivy League is stronger in the 2000 season than it has been in years past, with five teams — No. 4 Princeton, No. 11 Cornell, No. 13 Harvard, No. 14 Brown and No. 20 Yale — currently ranked in the Top 20 in the latest United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association coaches' poll.

The Big Red seems to have distanced itself from the rest of the Ivy pack with a resounding 12-4 victory over Yale last weekend. The Elis stunned Penn, 13-12, the previous week.