Another Friday, Another Big Weekend Ahead

There was a Princeton Department of Athletics monthly staff meeting yesterday. 

Maddy Plank and Charlie Bagin were part of the agenda. The two Princeton basketball players gave a recap of their cross country bicycle trip from this past summer, a trip that TigerBlog kept you updated on a few times as it was happening.

TB has never met either one of them. He didn't get the chance to do so yesterday either, since they both had to leave before the end of the meeting to get a class. 

As a result, TB emailed them to say that he enjoyed their presentation and that he's still looking forward to saying hi. And that he's extremely jealous of their trip. What they did was extraordinary, and perhaps only the kind of thing you can do when you're in college. 

Could TB ever do something like that at this stage of his riding life. Perhaps he will try it at some point. He can guarantee you that it won't be starting this weekend.

There are too many good Princeton athletic events on the calendar for that. While it's not quite crossover season yet (though it is looming), it is a busy few days for the fall Tigers, with some great events on campus and on the road.

The field hockey team has two home games this weekend, this afternoon at 4 against Cornell on ESPNU and then Sunday at noon against Penn State. Here are some things to know about the weekend in field hockey: 1) Princeton and Harvard are the only Ivy unbeatens, and they meet next week in Cambridge, 2) Cornell and Brown are both 2-1 and either would win the league's automatic bid by winning out, which makes today's game huge, 3) Penn State is currently ranked fifth in the country (the Tigers are 16th this week) and 4) Beth Yeager needs one goal to break the school record for goals by a freshman (she's currently tied with Michelle Cesan and Amy MacFarlane with 14).

So that's the field hockey weekend. It can be summed up this way: The game next week in Cambridge is huge, but it's not time to be looking to that quite yet, not with the challenges on Bedford Field this weekend.

There's a soccer doubleheader tomorrow against Columbia. It starts at 4 with the men's game, and then it concludes at 7 with the women.

If you look at the Ivy League women's standings, you'll see Princeton is 2-1-0, behind 3-0-0 Brown and Harvard. There's still a very, very long way to go, but every game is huge now, not just for the league but also for a possible at-large bid. Columbia comes into the game 1-2 in the league and 7-4-1 overall.

On the men's side, Princeton and Cornell are the only unbeaten, untied teams in the league, after just two league games for each. That tells you something about the depth and balance of the Ivy League. 

After just two games, in fact, five teams have at least one league loss. Yale is 1-0-1. Columbia, this week's opponent, is 0-1-1 in the league and 1-6-3 overall.

There is also home women's volleyball, tonight (Yale) and tomorrow (Brown) as the double round-robin reaches the midway point. Princeton and Yale have been the top teams in the league the last few years, and the Tigers are 5-0 in the league to date. Yale, though, is 3-2, and it is Brown who suddenly is 5-0. You have to go back to 2001 for Brown's last Ivy title, so you know this is a big trip for the Bears.

Princeton's football team will be in Providence Saturday to take on Brown. The Tigers, 4-0 and ranked in every FCS poll now, have six Ivy games in six weeks beginning tomorrow, with kickoff at 12:30.

Princeton is looking to join Harvard and Dartmouth at 2-0 in the league. There are two Ivy games tomorrow (Princeton-Brown and Penn-Columbia).

Brown, led by former Princeton offensive coordinator James Perry, is 1-3 on the season, but the Bears did smash Colgate 31-10 last weekend to get in the win column. Any conversation about Brown begins with E.J. Perry, who leads the Ivy League in every passing category: attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns and interceptions. Perry and Princeton's Cole Smith are 1-2 in the league in total offense.

There is also home cross country and women's tennis and even a home women's hockey exhibition game this weekend.  The complete schedule is HERE.