Hofstra Head Lacrosse Coach Seth Tierney begins his fourth season as the Pride mentor and enters the 2010 season ranked 11th in this week's United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) Division I poll. The Pride, who return 21 players from last year's 11-4 team that captured the Colonial Athletic Association regular season title and received their 15th NCAA Championship bid, are led by 2009 All-American honorable mention and CAA Player of the Year, junior Jay Card. Card, who was voted the 2010 CAA Preseason Player of the Year and named to the Inside Lacrosse Preseason All-America team, tallied 35 goals and nine assists last season.

Despite the loss of sophomore attackman Kevin Ford to a foot injury, the Pride is expected to be even more potent on attack with the addition of Denver-transfer, Jamie Lincoln and junior Stephen Bentz, who will replace Ford. Lincoln, who was selected to the 2010 Inside Lacrosse Preseason All-America team, tallied 48 goals and four assists as a freshman at Denver in 2008 and has shown that he can dent the twine during the Pride's four preseason scrimmages. Bentz, who tallied six goals in 2009, has seamlessly slipped into the Pride attack.

The Pride defense is another area of strength with four players battling for the three starting spots. The depth on defense has allowed senior, tri-captain Adam Swarsen to move to long-stick middie. Senior Christian Scuderi, who was a USILA All-American honorable mention in 2009, and junior Mike Skudin will be joined on the defense by either senior Isaac Neal or red-shirt freshman Mark Mullen.

The midfield is young but deep and talented. Senior Dan Stein anchors the first midfield and is joined by sophomores Brad Loizeaux and Mike DeNapoli. The second midfield is a battle between four freshman as Adrian Sorichetti, Drew Coholan, red-shirt freshman Michael Hamilton and Aaron Jones will rotate in an out. Junior Steve DeNapoli, a 2010 Inside Lacrosse Preseason All-American, senior Tom Interlicchio, junior Tim Holman, sophomore Cole Koesterer and senior Sean Lucas are the short-stick defensive-middies while Swarsen, junior Adam Mojica and newcomers Jerry Nobile and Cory Caputo are at the long stick middie spot. Senior Mike Vaccaro and freshmen John Antoniades and Cullen Cassidy will handle face-offs this season.

Tierney calls the Pride goalie situation a good "problem" on the team as both sophomore Andrew Gvozden, who posted an 8.38 goals against average in 12 games last season, and freshman Rob Bellairs continue to excel and battle each other for the starting job.

For the first time in his coaching career, both as an assistant and as the Pride head coach, Tierney will not see his uncle, Bill, on the Tiger sideline Saturday. The elder Tierney, now the head coach at the University of Denver, relinquished the Princeton post last summer to former Drexel head coach Chris Bates, who begins his first season with the ninth-ranked Tigers. Princeton returns three USILA All-Americans from last year led by junior, attackman Jack McBride, who tallied 35 goals and seven assists in 2009; sophomore defender Chad Weidmaier and sophomore goalie Tyler Fiorito, who posted a 7.4 goals against average. The Tigers were 13-3 last season.

Hofstra leads the series with Princeton, 12-10, winning 9-7 in Hempstead last season. The Tigers won in 2008 at Princeton Stadium, 11-6.

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