Breathing In The Water

TigerBlog hopes that the whole Snapple cap thing won't become a daily update or anything.

He did want to share yesterday's with you. One day after reading about how tigers have stripes on their skin, not just their fur, TB learned that dolphins sleep with one eye open.

Maybe the dolphin in the wildly underrated "Shark Tale" should sleep with his eye open. He wasn't really a dolphin though. He was a shark who crossed the big boss of the reef.

If you never saw "Shark Tale" but like "Goodfellas" or "The Godfather," make sure you see "Shark Tale." It's up there with "Toy Story" and is way better than "Finding Nemo."

Anyway, why would dolphins sleep with one eye open? TigerBlog was intrigued, so he went to Google and learned this: When dolphins sleep, only half of their brains shut down, which enables them to remain vigilant to the threat of predators and to regulate their breathing to avoid drowning.

Dolphins can drown? Who knew? 

So back to Google TB went ,where he learned this (from the website "whalefacts.com"): For a dolphin to breathe it must come to the surface of the water and inhale oxygen through its blowhole.

And this: Unlike humans dolphins are unable to breathe from their mouth, which is very important because as dolphins dive underwater to hunt for food they need to be able to consume their prey while they are submerged without the fear of accidentally inhaling water and getting it in their lungs.

This, of course, makes TigerBlog wonder where Dolphins sleep. They're underwater, no? Then how do they breathe? They're mammals, so they can't get air through the water. They need to breath into their lungs.

Sigh. This is too confusing. Back to Google, for this: Dolphins have two basic methods of sleeping: they either rest quietly in the water, vertically or horizontally, or sleep while swimming slowly next to another animal. Individual dolphins also enter a deeper form of sleep, mostly at night. It is called logging because in this state, a dolphin resembles a log floating at the water's surface. 

And that's today's lesson on dolphins.

And now here comes an all-time easy segue:

Speaking of needing to breath in the water, the women's water polo team hosts Wagner in an NCAA tournament play-in game Saturday at 1 at DeNunzio Pool.

That was too easy. 

The women's water polo team won the CWPA championship this past weekend with a thrilling 7-6 win over Indiana. There aren't too many teams at Princeton whose biggest in-league rival is Indiana, but it's the case in women's water polo.

Princeton had lost to Indiana seven straight times, including twice this year, both by a goal. The championship game saw Princeton play from ahead and hold off the Hoosiers at the end.

Princeton is led by the two Ashleys, or two Ashleighs, or one of each of them. Ashley Hatcher is the team's leading scorer, the fifth-ranked scorer in program history for that matter. 

Ashleigh Johnson is the goalie. She is an extraordinary, international-level goalie. 

TigerBlog has asked the question before of who is the greatest female athlete in Princeton history. It's possible that it's Johnson. 

If you've never seen her, she is incredible. TigerBlog didn't even need to see her play live to figure this out. He knew it from looking at some of the still pictures of her.

TigerBlog has great respect for those who play water polo. It's a brutal sport, one that requires its athletes to be in sick shape. It's hardest, TB supposes, on the goalies. They have to tread water and tread water and then explode to the ball when it's come at them.

And it comes at them hard. And fast. TB doesn't know how they ever make a save.

Princeton and Wagner are meeting in one play-in game. The other matches Whittier College and UC-San Diego. It seems like the NCAA committee had a rather easy choice in setting the matchups.

The winner of Princeton-Wagner will have to go to California, to take on Stanford. The Cardinal are the second-seed in the 10-team field.

The eight teams that advance to Stanford will play three games each. Princeton's best finish ever has been fifth.

There are 10 teams in the field. There are seven teams from California. Hawaii is in it. 

The other two are Princeton and Wagner, two eastern schools located an hour apart.

That means that no team is in the NCAA tournament for a 3,000-mile stretch between here and California. Can any other sport ever say that?
 
Princeton made sure of the geographical anomaly by knocking out Indiana. Now it's NCAA tournament time.

Admission to the play-in game is free. Ashleigh Johson, and admission is free.

That's going to be hard to beat.