Barnaby the dog has passed away.
Losing a pet is not easy. In this case, the bond between pet and owner was so strong that anyone who knew them both had the same heartbroken reaction at the news.
Barnaby was a rescue dog who was adopted by Scott Jurgens when he was the athletic department head of marketing. You won't meet too many move lovable people in your life than Scott Jurgens.
Man's best friend? In this case, it was more than true. Scott and Barnaby were a duo. There was no Scott without his dog nearby.
TB and Scott have stayed in touch through the years. Any picture that Scott ever sent along had Barnaby in it. They traveled together. Lived in a bunch of different parts of the country together. And now, at around 13 or so years old, Scott finally had to put Barnaby to sleep Tuesday.
He sent this in a text to TB:
I had to say good bye this afternoon to my best friend Barnaby as he went over the Rainbow Bridge! I loved him so much but he is not in pain anymore and can chase squirrels and get up and bark at Amazon and UPS trucks as much as he wants to…
TB was immediately crushed. He told a few of the others who are here who knew Scott, and they had similar reactions, especially with an understanding of just how much Scott loved his dog.
On the other side of the emotional spectrum, today is the birthday of Craig Sachson, who spent 19 years working in the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications, the first two as an intern and then, after two years at Cornell, the final 17 as the contact for something like 12 sports.
Since two of his sports were football and rowing, TigerBlog will say that nobody who has ever worked in Princeton athletic communications ever was the contact for more athletes than Craig was. This is unverifiable, but TB will say yes, it's probably true.
Craig's approach here was exactly what you'd want from someone who covered so many sports. He loved all his teams, and his enthusiasm for all of his sports was the same.
Yes, he spent way more time on football than squash, but he made sure that every squash athlete here during his time felt valued. Most importantly, everything he did enhanced the experience of the athletes on those teams.
Happy birthday to Craig.
Meanwhile, back in the present of Princeton Athletics, there's a big game on the women's soccer schedule tonight. If you happen to be in Central Pennsylvania, you can see a matchup of teams who come into the game a combined 9-0-2.
Both teams are ranked sixth by the United Soccer Coaches. The host team, Penn State, is ranked sixth in Division I. Princeton, the visitor, is ranked sixth in the East Region poll.
Interestingly, both teams have one tie to date, and both of those games were 0-0 finals. Penn State's came with second-ranked North Carolina. Princeton's was with Rutgers.
Penn State has one-goal wins over No. 16 TCU, as well as West Virginia and Central Florida. Princeton and Penn State have one common opponent, Monmouth, who both schools beat by three goals (the Tigers 3-0; Penn State 4-1).
Princeton's most recent game was a 4-3 win over Army-West Point Saturday in a game in which Tiger sophomore Pietra Tordin scored all four of the goals. A year ago, while winning the Ivy Rookie of the Year Award, Tordin scored eight goals; she has seven in four games so far this year. She leads Division in goals per game (1.75).
Without looking, how many times do you think Princeton and Penn State have played in women's soccer? If you guessed three, you'd be right.
Three? That's it?
TB was actually at the most recent, which was a 2-0 Penn State win over the Tigers in the first round of the 2002 NCAA tournament, in a game played at the University of Maryland.
Remarkably, given the great histories that both programs have, this is the first time Princeton will ever play at Penn State. The other two games in the series were both in Princeton, back in the very, very early days of the program, 1980 and 1981. The teams split those games.
Tonight's game starts at 7:30 and can be seen on BTN+.
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