Player-of-the-Week

By Patrick

This weekend was filled with a number of high-profile match ups that lived up to their hype. Because there were so many nail-biting performances, it made our job of singling out one Player-of-the-Week very difficult. Fortunately, we here at Overtime Media pride ourselves on our adaptability, and we put that characteristic on display in choosing not one, but two players to share this week's award.

On Friday, Navy goalkeeper Tommy Phelan made an early push for the award - leading the Mids to an upset win while racking up an impressive 17 saves and an .81 save percentage against a potent Maryland offense.

On Saturday, Cornell was able to outlast the upstart Harvard Crimson thanks to offensive outbursts by Rob Pannell and Chris Finn, the all-around dominant play of Max Seibald, and some late-game heroics off the bench from goalkeeper Jake Myers; Hopkins handled Albany thanks to another high-scoring performance by one of our former weekly award winners, Chris Boland; and North Carolina pushed UVA to the limit despite losing senior goalkeeper Grant Zimmerman to an apparent knee injury midway through the second period.

While many performances earned consideration for our weekly award, it is a pair of teammates -freshmen no less - that share our this week's HomeField/Overtime Media Player-of-the-Week honors. Despite some offensive miscues, Princeton was able to handle the defending champion Syracuse Orangemen by a score of 12-8 at Giant's Stadium. Princeton was able to overcome 18 turnovers on offense as well as 5 failed clears thanks to a defense that held Syracuse's explosive offense to their lowest goal output of the season. The defense was led by Tyler Fiorito who was spectacular in goal, finishing with 15 saves and a stingy .652 save percentage, and defenseman Chad Wiedmaier who was instrumental in limiting Syracuse All-America attackman Kenny Nims to just 2 goals. At one point, Princeton's D managed to hold Syracuse scoreless for 14:58, a lengthy drought that extended from late in the third quarter until the final minutes of play.

Congratulations to Tyler, Chad, and the Princeton Tigers on an outstanding win. With all five remaining games against Ivy League foes, Princeton will need these two freshmen to continue playing beyond their years if they hope to reclaim the Ivy crown from last season's co-champions, Brown and Cornell.

(Photographs by Beverly Schaefer, courtesy of Princeton University)