By Andrew Scharff

It probably was almost a certainty that the television in the Tierney family household was probably tuned into Fox Sports New York for Sunday afternoon’s contest between Hofstra and Princeton. And why not, Sunday was a first for the Tierney family.

A week after coaching against his old boss and great friend Johns Hopkins head man Dave Pietramala, Hofstra Men’s Lacrosse head coach Seth Tierney was pitted against his uncle, Princeton head coach and member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame Bill Tierney.

Unfortunately for the Pride they could get Tierney a win against his uncle, as Princeton got the best of Hofstra as the Tigers beat the Pride 5-4 in heartbreaking fashion.

“Arguably he’s the best coach in lacrosse history. If you ask his nephew, he is the best lacrosse coach. No arguments,” said Seth Tierney. “I didn’t really recognize him over there. Once the whistle blew you could have had anyone standing over there. It was the same thing with Pietramala last week. It’s the 40 guys and the four coaches on this team, that’s the only thing I focus on. We have to get better as a team before I can look down the sideline and see who I am coaching against.”

As tough of a loss it was for Seth Tierney to take, his uncle Bill did not enjoy too much either.

“It was horrible. It was one of my most miserable experiences of my life. And I mean that. But for me I just felt it was such a mind game. The emotion that needs to not be attached when you’re coaching a team to try to win,” said Bill Tierney. “Then you mix that all up with how close Seth and I are, it just made it a little more difficult. It’s one of those victories that you feel bad about because he lost.

“I tried to get my team to forget about the fact that it was Seth and I. We’ve become the big talk of this game and neither one of us was going to score a goal,” added Bill Tierney I thought the Hofstra kids played with a lot of emotion as they have all year. For a bunch of young guys they gave us all we can handle and more. We were very lucky to win in the end.”

Here’s a great quote I got from Bill Tierney about Hofstra lacrosse.

“I thought Danny Hofstra’s goalie played a fabulous game for a freshman. That’s no small feat for what he did out there today. People are going to test him and that’s what we tried to do. He stopped the high ones; he stopped the low ones and everything in between.”

“You’re in these one goal games and someone has to win and someone has to lose. For Seth I know this is going to change. I know what he is bringing in and I know how hard these kids are playing for him. These games are tough for him, but he’s playing with the best in the country, certainly after what Hopkins has done. He’s got a bunch of kids with big hearts and they will turn around. And they’ll win some important games by one goal.”