No. 25 And No. 25

MEN'S TRACK AND FIELD HEPS STORY
WOMEN'S SWIMMING AND DIVING IVY CHAMPIONSHIPS STORY
WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD HEPS STORY

So TigerBlog was out to eat the other night when he got up to use the restroom.

When he went to wash his hands, he saw that 1) there was only one sink and 2) that there was an older man using it. And using it. And using it. This man was scrubbing his hands quite thoroughly.

TB waited his turn. And waited. And waited.

Finally, he said to the man: "What are you, going into surgery or something?" The man, fortunately, laughed at that. 

When TB relayed the story to a friend of his after the fact, the response he got was "You learned well from Coach Carril." 

Egads. He was right. TB might have even said "Yo" before the rest.

Anyway, moving along, it was a two-Ivy League title weekend for Princeton, with championships in women's swimming and diving and men's indoor track and field. That brings the total number of titles for 2023-24 to seven, with six in the Ivy League (men's cross country, men's fencing, men's squash, women's fencing, women's swimming and diving and men's indoor track and field) and one non-Ivy (men's water polo).

Princeton went wire-to-wire in both this past weekend, finishing with comfortable-and somewhat-dominating championships. It's one thing to be the favorite. It's another to actually go out and get it done. 

In men's track and field, Princeton put up 168 points, 53 better than second place Cornell. For the Tigers, it was the ninth-straight indoor Heps title and 25th overall. 

In women's swimming and diving, Princeton won for the second straight time and, coincidentally, the 25th time overall. The Tigers finished with 1,403 points, ahead of Harvard, with 1,317.5.

Both teams have first-year head coaches, sort of. For the men's track and field team, that means Jason Vigilante, the longtime men's cross country head coach who has taken over for Fred Samara as the head coach of men's track and field as well.  

Fred, by the way, was in attendance at Heps at Harvard. His muscle memory probably triggered the "third weekend of February; time to get to Heps" reflex.

The women's swimming and diving team is coached by Abby Brethauer, who was previously an assistant coach with the men's program.

You know what is a good word to have before your time in a swim meet or track and field meet, especially a championship one? How about "record?" 

As in: "Sabrina Johnston won the 100 freestyle in a pool-record and NCAA B qualifying time of 48.28." Or "Nicholas Bendtsten excelled this weekend, securing two separate first place finishes. He dominated the men's 3000m with a time of 7:54.81, setting an Ivy League Record and the fastest time at an Ivy League Championship since 1983."

Princeton had a few others whose marks were in the same sentence of some combination of "-record." Another one was this: "Tessa Mudd finished first in the pole vault and reclaimed her Ivy League Record with a PR jump of 4.39m (14'4.25). Two weeks prior to the indoor championship meet, Anastasia Retsa of Harvard took the indoor Ivy record from Mudd. On her final attempt, Mudd had to clear this bar to win the competition, and in doing so, she took back the Ivy record and qualified for the NCAA championship. This mark ranks the sophomore at 13th in the nation and won her the most outstanding field performer of the meet."

The women's team finished second overall, falling to Penn in the final event in what was an extraordinarily close team race. Had Princeton finished one spot behind Penn in the 4x200 relay, then the teams would have tied. 

The men's swimming and diving championships are this weekend at Harvard, beginning tomorrow and running through Saturday. 

That's a lot of history. Harvard has won the last six. Princeton has been second each time. 

TB will leave you with this for today: The last time neither Princeton nor Harvard won at least a share of the Ivy League title was, if you can believe this, 1971. That's nineteen-seventy-one. Since the league went to a championship meet format in 1997, only Princeton or Harvard has won — tying once.