Three From Saturday

As TigerBlog remembers it, the Heps cross country meet was a four-chocolate-chip-cookie, two brownie, one soft pretzel event. At least for him.

In fairness, the brownies were pretty small, and they did have confectioner's sugar on them, which made them completely unavoidable. And the cookies? He did offer one to someone else who turned it down.

TB loves the Heps cross country championships, and not just for the food that can be found at each school's tailgate. And hey, for this year, he limited himself at least to the food at the Princeton tent.

The most commonly heard comments at the West Windsor Fields Saturday during Heps? It was all about how the weather this year was better than last year, when driving snow was the big storyline.

This time, the weather was a big subject as well, with talk about how perfect it was for running and how the hurricane was on the way.

In years past, it hasn't always been easy to tell which team won the race as the parade of runners churns through the chute to the finish line. The first few are easy to identify, and then they start to come by too quickly to keep track of, let alone add up.

Instead, it can take five or 10 minutes for the official results to be posted, during which time the speculation runs as wildly as the race just did.

For the races this past weekend, there was no such problem.

It was obvious when the women's race ended that it was all Cornell, who ran away to the title. The drama was for who would be second, and that ended up being extremely close, as Princeton edged out Harvard and Brown, who tied for third, by two points (91-93).

As for the men, it was supposed to be close between Princeton and Columbia, and the first time the runners came around, it certainly looked that way.

The next time?

It was all orange and black, as the Tigers went 1-2-4-7-12 to win for the third straight year and sixth in the last seven. Princeton has also won seven straight Ivy titles in cross country or track and field after sweeping all three each of the last two years.

The individual winner was Princeton's Chris Bendtsen, who sprinted to the finish line and looked like he wasn't the least bit winded when it was over.

Bendtsen and the men's cross country team weren't the only big winners in Princeton Athletics Saturday.

In fact, Princeton teams won three Ivy League championships Saturday in a span of about eight hours.

Shortly after the cross country races ended, the field hockey team clinched at least a tie for the league championship, its 18th in the last 19 years.

This one was accomplished with a 5-0 win over Cornell. The Tigers would clinch the outright title with a win Saturday against Penn, but regardless of that game, Princeton has already earned the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

The 2012 Tigers are one of the best field hockey teams in league history, and they have now outscored their Ivy opponents 38-1.

The third championship also was earned in Ithaca, as the women's soccer team defeated Cornell 5-1 to run its record to 6-0-0 in the league and 12-3-1 overall.

It almost became a bigger day for the Tigers when Penn and Brown went into overtime, and a Brown win or tie would have given Princeton the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament as well. Instead, Penn scored four minutes into OT, and so the automatic bid will not be decided until this weekend.

Princeton hosts Penn Saturday at 4 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, and a win or tie would give Princeton the outright championship and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Tigers could still get into the NCAA tournament with a loss, but that would take some luck.

For one thing, Princeton would need Dartmouth to beat Brown should it lose to Penn, which would create a three-way tie for the title. The NCAA bid would then be decided by a random draw, since Penn, Princeton and Dartmouth would all be 1-1 against each other and 5-0 against the rest of the league.

Of course, a win or tie for the Tigers makes all that irrelevant.

And hopefully the athletic facilities will still be standing when Sandy gets through with her show.