It wasn’t pretty in the first half, but the Orange and Black were able to pull away in the second half and secure a comfortable win.
“We knew it was going to be tough; Penn has a great defense and goalie,” senior attacker Coulter Mackesy wrote to The Daily Princetonian. “We started working harder and longer each possession, and that paid off in the second half.”
On Saturday afternoon, No. 2 ranked Tigers men’s lacrosse (10–2 overall, 4–1 Ivy League) beat the unranked Penn Quakers (4–9, 1–5 Ivy) on the road, playing spoiler to the Quakers’ senior day celebrations and putting a nail in the coffin on Penn’s worst season since 2012.
Prior to the game on Saturday, the NCAA committee released its first rankings of the season, with Princeton ranked third behind Cornell and Maryland, respectively.While the Tigers are ranked first in RPI and second in the media poll, the committee clearly values head-to-head, as the Tigers' lone losses have come against the Big Red and Terps.
Despite a slow start that saw the Tigers trail 7–4 at half, the Orange and Black bounced back emphatically en route to a 12–8 win, their sixth in a row.
“We didn’t really need to say much at all at halftime,” Head Coach Matt Madalon wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “It was Penn’s senior day and they played with a lot of emotion and pride. Our guys knew that they hadn’t played their best half, and they were still very confident that there was plenty of time left.”
After an initial defensive stop, junior attacker Chad Palumbo scored as the shot clock expired to put the Tigers up 1–0. Penn equalized after a near seven-minute drought by both sides and from here goals flowed from both teams.
After a timeout by Madalon, sophomore midfielder Tucker Wade scored to level the game at two. Penn continued to dominate the face-off and limit their turnovers to take a 4–2 lead at the end of the first period.
In the first quarter, Penn won five of the seven face-offs while committing just one turnover, compared to Princeton’s four. Despite junior face-off specialist Andrew McMeekin not having his best game, Madalon wasn’t concerned.
"We have a lot of confidence in him [McMeekin] and in Koby [Ginder] and in the job that [assistant] Coach [Casey] Dowd does with the entire unit,” Madalon wrote to the ‘Prince.’
Both defenses looked composed to start the second quarter, with neither side scoring in the first six minutes.
With just under nine minutes remaining in the first half, Penn attacker Ben Smith scored after a backdoor cut to give the Quakers a 5–2 lead.
After a 15-minute goal drought, sophomore attacker Nate Kabiri found a cutting Palumbo for the Tigers’ third goal of the game. Princeton continued to attack as first-year attacker Peter Buonanno found the back of the net to cut the deficit to one.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, the end of the quarter didn’t go their way once again. In a span of a minute, the Quakers ripped off two consecutive goals to take a 7–4 lead into the locker room.
For the Quakers, it was one of their strongest first halves of the season. In 2025, Penn has scored seven or more first-half goals in just four of their 12 games.
Turnovers and ground balls proved costly for Madalon’s team in the second quarter. The Tigers committed five additional turnovers and secured only three of the 11 ground balls.
In the second half, Princeton flipped the switch and looked like a different team on both ends of the field.
Buonanno once again found the back of the net for the Tigers’ first goal of the second half. Shortly after, the visitors halted a Penn man-up advantage and found the back of the net on the other end courtesy of a goal from senior midfielder Sean Cameron.
Down one, it was Mackesy coming alive with two quick goals to put Princeton up 8–7. For Mackesy, the go-ahead goal gave him his 233rd career point (158 goals, 75 assists), good for third all-time in Princeton’s record books. Earlier this week, Mackesy was named as one of the 25 nominees for the Tewaaraton Award, awarded to the best player in college lacrosse.
With under a minute remaining in the third, senior attacker Braedon Saris capped off a phenomenal third quarter for the Tigers with a goal, now leading 9–7. Princeton forced six turnovers and didn’t allow a single ball to get past junior goalie Ryan Croddick during that period.
After Penn cut the lead to one, it was Buonanno who completed his hat trick to restore the Tigers’ two-goal advantage. From this point on, it was clear that the Quakers had lost all their momentum. The Tigers continued to dominate on both ends en route to a 12–8 win at Franklin Field.
Buonanno has 10 goals on the year and is one of the lone first-year players making an impact on Madalon’s squad. After recording just one goal and one assist in the first six games, Buonanno has eight goals and five assists in the last six.
“It takes a little while to adjust to the college game for pretty much every player,” Madalon wrote. “We have had pretty high expectations of him [Buonanno] and we’re thrilled with the progress he’s made. You saw in the game [against Penn] how electric he can be and how he can pick up the team with his ability to score big goals."
The same Quaker team that took 29 shots in the first half only managed a mere 14 in the second. In goal, Croddick made 12 saves to pace a Tiger defense that has allowed just 8.9 goals per game in its last eight contests. Croddick leads the Ivy League in save percentage (59.2).
With No. 1 Cornell’s (11–1, 5–0 Ivy) 20–12 win over No. 10 Harvard (9–3, 3–2 Ivy) Saturday, the Tigers are locked into the two seed for the Ivy League tournament and will head to Ithaca, New York, over the first weekend of May. Before then, the Tigers will host the Yale Bulldogs (5–6, 3–2) on Saturday for senior day.
“We haven’t reached our ceiling yet, and that's the most exciting part," Mackesy told the ‘Prince.’ “We can’t wait for this weekend to showcase our best 60 minutes of lacrosse.”
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate News editor, senior Sports writer, and education director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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