A Weekend With ESPN+

There will be a total eclipse today.

Of course there will be. Why wouldn't there be? There's been everything else around here of late. Why not an eclipse?

Floods? Check. Crazy winds? Check. Snow flurries? Check.

Oh, and that's nothing. There was an earthquake Friday. An actual earthquake.

TigerBlog was in his car Friday when the earthquake came along, and so he missed the whole thing. Still, an earthquake? After all the other craziness that Mother Nature has thrown around the Princeton area this past week? 

And now an eclipse. TigerBlog found a pretty good eclipse website that says that the event will begin at 2:09:18 in the Princeton area, will peak at 3:24:34 and then end at 4:35:33. This will be a partial solar eclipse, and the next total solar eclipse here will be on May 1 — in the year 2079. 

If you want to know what time the eclipse will peak near you, click HERE.

There will be a total lunar eclipse on March 14, 2025, which will be a small part of March Madness next year. What's the difference between a lunar eclipse and solar eclipse? A solar eclipse is when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. A lunar eclipse is when the Earth passes between the Moon and the Sun. Apparently a lunar eclipse can only happen at night during a full moon.

Anyway, maybe all of this is what happens when there is an April weekend without a men's lacrosse game, something TB can't remember ever happening before in a full season since he's been around the team. 

With no men's lacrosse game to cover, TB spent much of his time this weekend on ESPN+. If you're an Ivy League fan, you can't ask for much more. It's wall-to-wall of pretty much any event you want to see. 

First of all, if you like ESPN+, and odds are good you do, then you really owe a thank you to the video departments at the eight Ivy schools. At Princeton, that means Cody Chrusciel, Dave Turner and Mike Galayda.

It's not easy to broadcast all of the events that are currently being produced in the Ivy League, let alone do them so well. It requires so much administrative and technical work, and, much like the game officials themselves, their work is going best when they're noticed the least.

The growth of the number of broadcasts has also created unprecedented opportunities for play-by-play announcers and color commentators. Many are young. Some are very experienced. Their ability — and in some cases, their homerism — varies, but most are doing at least a credible job. 

TigerBlog watched all of the Princeton-Brown baseball game yesterday on ESPN+, and the announcers were excellent. The play-by-play man was Scott Cordischi, who has been the voice of the Bears in many sports for a long time. The color commentator was named Nick Coit, the sports director at Providence's ABC station and a sideline reporter for Brown football and men's basketball. Like TB said, they were excellent, easy to listen to for nine innings.

One thing TB learned from watching Brown's production was that John Krasinski, the actor, was in the Class of 2001 there. TB had no idea about that — until he saw the Brown institutional spot, many times actually.

Princeton and Brown split the two games of the Saturday doubleheader, and each game lasted more than three hours. The game Sunday, a 4-2 Princeton win, was more of a pitchers' duel between Tiger freshman Sean Episcope (six innings, two runs allowed, seven strikeouts) and Brown junior Santosh Gottam (eight innings, 12 strikeouts). This game moved along at a great pace, taking barely 2:15 to complete.

The Tigers snapped the 2-2 tie in the eighth when Jake Bold tripled in a run and then got another run in the ninth on an RBI double from Tommy Googins. Jacob Faulkner took over from Episcope for the final three innings to get the win. 

It was a big win, potentially at least, for the Tigers, who entered the day fourth in the Ivy standings, one game ahead of Brown. As you know, the top four teams advance to the Ivy League tournament, and the win yesterday gave Princeton a two-game lead over Brown but also the head-to-head tiebreaker should it come to that.

TB also watched some of the Princeton-Harvard softball doubleheader yesterday. It looked cold in Cambridge too; kudos to the fan sitting directly behind home plate who was wearing shorts.

Of course TB also watched some lacrosse, including the Princeton-Columbia women's game and the other Ivy men's games Saturday, (Yale beat Penn, Cornell beat Brown and Harvard beat Dartmouth), as well as a few other men's lacrosse games. Sacred Heart, by the way, thumped Wagner to get to 6-0 in the MAAC.

As for the Princeton women, they rolled past Columbia 24-12, building off the big 14-9 win over Penn from Wednesday night. The Tigers had two players with six points each, as McKenzie Blake had five goals and an assist and Jami MacDonald had three goals and three assists. 

The win left the Tigers at 3-1 in the league and hoping for a Penn win over Yale yesterday, which would have created a four-way tie for first with those three and Harvard. Instead, Yale had a huge win over the Quakers, and now the standings go Yale 4-0, Princeton/Harvard 3-1 and Penn 2-2 and suddenly tied with Cornell and Brown. 

That Yale-Penn game was on ESPNU. TB watched a little of it, but he was more interested in a different game. 

Anyway, enjoy the eclipse. And don't look straight at the sun.