Thursday, May 7, 2009

Novick-Casaceli-Aboff-Ashley Tournament Time

There have been a few posts on TigerBlog about Princeton's success across many sports, leading to the unofficial Ivy League all-sports title.

This weekend is the start of the payoff for all that success. Four Princeton teams will are NCAA bound, starting today.

Here's your four-day NCAA menu...

Thursday
Golfer Susannah Aboff
gained a berth in the NCAA East Regional, the first round of which is Thursday. Aboff is the first Tiger women's golfer to appear in an NCAA regional since 2005, which was the last time Princeton won an Ivy League title and nabbed the league's NCAA automatic bid. The course is the University of Florida's home turf, Bostick Golf Course, and Aboff will have to finish as one of the top two scorers who are not on one of the top eight teams (of 21, plus two other individuals) in order to advance to the NCAA Championship. Her tee time is 7:30 a.m.

Friday
For the first time since 2000, the women's tennis team is in the NCAA tournament and Florida International is Princeton's first-round opponent in Miami, Fla. Sophomore Blakely Ashley plays sixth singles for the Tigers, a young team on which all six singles starters are juniors or younger. Three of the top four players (Ivy League Rookie of the Year Lauren McHale, fellow Ivy first-teamer Hilary Bartlett and Ivy second-teamer Rachel Saiontz) on Princeton's singles ladder are freshmen. First serve on the University of Miami's courts for the Tiger cubs is 10 a.m.

Aboff will be back on the golf course Friday for her second round, which begins at 11:40 a.m.

Saturday
If things go well for the women's tennis team Friday, they'll be battling the Miami-Army winner at 1 p.m. Saturday in the second round. Princeton is 0-2 all-time in the NCAA tournament, but those results are relatively ancient history since the two losses were in 1983 and 2000. It was only three years ago that Penn was the last Ivy team to win an NCAA match, and Harvard has advanced to the Round of 16 this decade.

Aboff's third and final round at the NCAA East Regional will begin at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.

Sunday
The weekend's final day will belong to the laxers at Class of 1952 Stadium. The women's team, with senior Christine Casaceli as one of five 20+ goal scorers along with newly crowned Ivy League Player of the Year Holly McGarvie, will look to win a first-round NCAA game at home for the second straight year when the eighth-seeded Tigers meet Georgetown at 1:30 p.m. Tickets, which can be purchased here, are $10.

Later Sunday, at 5 p.m., the fourth-seeded men's lacrosse team, of which Tim Novick is one of a nine-member senior class that includes Mark Kovler as a first-team All-Ivy honoree, will be at home for the NCAAs for the first time since 2006 to host Massachusetts. The game will be televised live by ESPNU, but if you're in the area, come on out to '52 Stadium and make sure the bleachers are packed. Tickets can be purchased here and are $10.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to read that the ticket prices for the eight men's lacrosse NCAA games this weekend range in price at the various locales from $5 to $7 to $10.

Aren't the ticket prices set by the NCAA? I would have guessed that, even though the games are hosted by the seeded teams, all off-field policies are set by the NCAA.