Courtesy: Princeton Athletic CommunicationsThis was not Princeton's day.
The question is, will this be Princeton's night?
The Princeton men's lacrosse team fell to Yale 15-7 in the Ivy League tournament final Sunday afternoon in front of 1,422 at Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium. The win earned Yale the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and the loss gave the Ivy League champion Tigers a spot right in the middle of the NCAA bubble.
On which side of the NCAA fence will Princeton land?
That will be known later tonight, at 9:00 to be exact, when the selections are announced on ESPNU.
Princeton and Yale played five overtimes back on March 24 before Alex Capretta ended it. From there, Princeton finished out a perfect Ivy League season to win the championship.
Yale, meanwhile, hasn't lost since, and the win over Princeton was its ninth straight. It also capped a weekend in which the Bulldogs avenged their two regular-season league losses, knocking off Cornell Friday night and then Princeton Sunday.
The final of the tournament was all Yale.
The Bulldogs led 4-0 early in the second, 5-3 at the half, 7-3 early in the third and then 7-5 after Princeton was able to get two back quickly. Princeton had several opportunities to make it a one-goal game, but Yale scored the next one and then broke it wide open in the fourth quarter.
Capretta had two goals and two assists for Princeton, and Mike MacDonald has his 21st and 22nd goals of the season.
Tom Schreiber had two assists, making him the fourth player in school history and first since Jon Hess in 1996 to have at least 30 goals and at least 25 assists in the same season.
Yale was led by tournament MVP Matt Gibson, who had two goals and four assists in the final and two goals and 12 assists for the tournament. Deron Dempster finished the tournament with 11 goals on 12 shots.
When it was over, Princeton head coach Chris Bates and seniors Capretta and Tyler Fiorito were in the media tent, unsure of whether their season was over or not.
When asked to make a case for an at-large bid, Fiorito spoke about how strong the Tigers have been this season and how formidible they could be in the NCAA tournament if given the chance.
When it was Bates' turn to talk, a member of the TV crew turned on a scissor lift, and the resulting noise made it so that no one was listening when Bates make his team's case.
Was it a foreshadow?
The Tigers will find out in a few hours.
