Tournament Time

Before the subject turns to this coming weekend's Ivy League tournaments for field hockey and women's soccer, TigerBlog would like to go back to this past Friday night in New Haven.

The Princeton-Yale field hockey game would determine which team got the fourth spot in the league tournament. To overtime it went, and then 51 seconds in, Bridget Murphy scored the game-winner for the Tigers. 

As you might expect, it set off a pretty good celebration on Princeton's part. And as celebration pictures go, this one is pretty good, no?

Okay, so there's a little more to it than that. TigerBlog was in his third game as a photographer for the field hockey team, this time with a larger lens that enabled him to presumably get better shots. When Murphy scored her goal, it was at the far end of the field from where TB stood, and he got ... nothing. 

None of the pictures he took were remotely good. Now what was he supposed to use? 

Ah, but there was a video review. The officials left the field and headed to the review booth, and it dawned on TB that if the goal stood, there would be a second celebration. As such, he positioned himself pretty much at midfield, camera pointed at the players huddled on the bench. 

When the officials signaled that the goal was good, he got his picture. If only it could always be that easy. Just pause everyone, let TB get in the right spot, and then reenact the big moment. 

Oh well. Whatever it took, he came out with a pretty good shot. 

He'll have his camera again at Harvard, where the Tigers will play in the field hockey tournament Friday at noon. Princeton, who finished in a three-way tie for second in the regular season, is the No. 3 seed and will face No. 2 Cornell in the tournament's first game. Top-seed Harvard will face fourth-seeded Penn in the second semifinal, and the final will be Sunday at 1.

About two hours later and 45 minutes south, the women's soccer team will play at Brown in its Ivy tournament. The first game matches third-seeded Princeton and second-seeded Harvard, while top seed Brown will take on fourth-seeded Columbia in Game 2. The final will also be Sunday at 1.

The winner of each tournament will get the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

The field hockey team defeated Cornell 3-2 in a penalty shootout during the regular season. The Big Red played Harvard this past Saturday in Ithaca for a chance at a share of the league title and the host spot for the tournament, and that game ended 2-1 Harvard on a goal with two seconds left. Yes, two seconds. And it wasn't on a penalty corner. How many times does that happen in field hockey? Never? 

Harvard's current RPI is nine, which suggests the Crimson are in pretty good shape for an NCAA bid no matter what happens in the tournament. Cornell is 20, followed by Princeton at 22 and Penn at 30. Those three all need the automatic bid to keep playing beyond this weekend.

On the women's soccer side, all four teams in the Ivy tournament figure to be in good shape for the NCAA tournament, though you never actually know. 

Brown's RPI is five. Princeton is 14. Harvard is 16. Columbia is 24. 

There are two points to make about those rankings. First, it shows you how strong the league is. Second, like the men's lacrosse RPIs of 2022 that resulted in six NCAA bids, every time one of those four plays another of those four, its RPI is helped, regardless of what happens in the game.  

This is the first year of the tournaments for field hockey and women's soccer, as well as men's soccer and women's volleyball, which are a week behind. 

Had this been every other year in Ivy field hockey history, Harvard would have clinched the bid already. For the other three, this is a second chance to keep the season going, something Princeton did a week ago with that win over Yale.

In women's soccer, it's a chance to get ready for the tournament atmosphere that will follow after the NCAA bids come out.