Men's Lacrosse: Tigers open home slate against Tar Heels

The Tar Heels (4-1) are coming off a huge 12-6 victory over No. 13 Penn and are hoping to continue their strong play against Princeton. UNC has won three games in a row, and recent play suggests that the Tar Heels are a much stronger team than their ranking suggests.

Last Saturday, the No. 7 Tigers (1-1) traveled to Homewood Field to play longtime rival No. 17 Johns Hopkins in an annual matchup that has typically come down to the wire. But Princeton surprised fans and rivals alike when the team crushed the Blue Jays 8-3 and presented Johns Hopkins with its first defeat of the season.

The match was a return to form for the Tigers. Princeton struggled to win ground balls at Hofstra, but “were much better at getting possessions” against Johns Hopkins, according to head coach Chris Bates. During the season opener at Hofstra, the Tigers only picked up 16 ground balls throughout the entire game. Halfway through the match against Hopkins, they had already earned 21.

“We played a very good half on defense,” Bates said. “Our guys were ready and executed the game plan to get the ball.” Bates cited the improvement as a result of a week’s worth of focus in practice to “make sure they were a little grittier.”

Yet for all of their gritty play, the Tigers still stayed out of the penalty box. Princeton forfeited a mere minute and a half of game play from two infractions.

Tiger fans can also look forward to more contributions from talented freshman midfielder Tom Schreiber, who put four goals into the Hopkins net and picked up an assist in his second college start.

But the Tigers faced a few unfortunate events during the game. Only two matches into the season, Princeton may have to sit out another teammate after sophomore defenseman Rob Castelo suffered a devastating season-ending injury.

With new team members coming off the bench tonight, Bates has been using practice “to try to understand what Carolina does and at the same time acclimate by sending new guys out and making sure that they are ready for their new roles,” he said.

“We don’t have the same game experience, but we’ve prepared well,” Bates added. “That’s the nature of athletics — guys got to be ready to get off the bench and be contributors.”

UNC’s offense will be anchored by its regular contributors: sophomore attackman Marcus Holman, junior attackman Thomas Wood and freshman midfielder Duncan Hutchins. The trio combined for eight goals against Penn during their last match and will surely give junior goalie Tyler Fiorito a challenge.

Princeton will host UNC at the Class of 1952 Stadium starting at 7 p.m. tonight. The game will be broadcast live on ESPNU.