Cross Country And Water Polo

TigerBlog starts today by wishing his cousin Janet a happy birthday. 

He starts with that because while she reads the blog every day, she is really not all that interested in anything to do with Princeton Athletics. That makes her loyalty even more impressive.

Rather than make her read the entire thing, he says "Happy Birthday" at the top so she can get on with her big day. She is still, by the way, two years older than TB, no matter how many years go by. 

And now that she has gone off to do other things, TB can tell you that the first NCAA cross country championship meet was held in 1938 and was hosted by Michigan State.

Who won? 

Hint - this school won again in 1940, tied in 1942 and hasn't won since. This school is not one of the 31 teams who will compete for the 2023 championship Saturday and finished eighth at its conference meet this year.

Michigan State won the 1939 championship, also at home. In fact, East Lansing was the host every year until 1965, when it was held at Kansas.

This year's event will be hosted by Virginia, at its picturesque Panorama Farms course. The women's race will begin at 10:20, followed by the men at 11:10, and both will be shown on ESPNU.

By the way, this is the second time that UVa will be the host. The other times was 1987.

Panorama Farms is actually in Earlysville, which is about 10 miles north of the UVA campus off a Route 29. It's also about six miles away from where the only Civil War fighting in Albemarle County occurred, and this was a minor, forgotten skirmish that resulted in no actual casualties and only some property damage. The Union General who commanded? George Custer.

And the first NCAA champion in cross country? That was Indiana.

On the men's side, Northern Arizona has won six of the last seven (BYU was the lone interrupter). On the women's side, North Carolina State has won the last two. Northern Arizona enters the weekend as the top-ranked team in the country for both men and women.

The Princeton men come in ranked 10th nationally. What is Princeton's best all-time finish? That would be an 11th place finish in 2012. 

Only eight times in Ivy history has a team finished in the top 10, and nobody has done so since Dartmouth finished ninth in 1989. That's 34 years ago.

Princeton comes into the meet having run away from the field to win the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional last Saturday at Lehigh. The Tigers had five of the top 12 finishers — Nicholas Bendtsen fourth, Jarrett Kirk sixth, Connor Nisbet eighth, Anthony Monte 11th and Daniel O'Brien 12th — for a total of 41 points, well ahead of second-place Villanova, who had 73.

The current rankings have Princeton 10th, Villanova 11th and Harvard 12th. Princeton edged out Harvard to win the Ivy League Heps championship last month on Harvard's home course.

It should be a fascinating race. If you're planning on going, HERE is information about parking and tickets. 

While the men's cross country team runs at Virginia, the men's water polo team will be swimming at Harvard. The Crimson will host the Northeast Water Polo Conference tournament this weekend, with seven teams on hand to chase the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

The first round will see fourth-seeded Iona take on fifth-seeded MIT in Friday's quarterfinals, with the winner to take on top-seeded Princeton, who has a bye to the semifinals. The other side of the bracket has second-seeded Harvard against seventh-seeded Connecticut College and third-seeded Brown against sixth-seeded Long Island University.

Princeton will play its semifinal match Saturday at noon, and the championship match will be Sunday at 1. 

Princeton, with a record of 25-5, is the No. 7 team in the country right now. The Tigers have had a great season, with three wins over Top 10 teams from California, a one-goal loss to No. 4 Pepperdine and a two-goal loss to No. 1 UCLA.

Princeton went 4-0 against Iona and MIT this season, with each game decided by at least five goals. Harvard and Princeton both went 9-1 in the league, splitting their games with each other. They are the heavy favorites to meet again Sunday.

The NWPC tournament games can be seen on ESPN+. The NCAA championships will be held at USC's Uytengsu Aquatics Center Dec. 1-3.