Eight For Morrisroe

Today's entry is one of those where TigerBlog went to look something up, got distracted and then almost forgot what it was he was trying to find.

The Princeton women's lacrosse team defeated Brown 23-10 in Providence Saturday, on a day when freshman Meg Morrisroe tied the school record for goals in a game with eight. When TB went to the women's lacrosse record book, he saw that Morrisroe is now the third Princeton women's lacrosse player to reach eight goals in a game.

The first was Kathy Mahoney, who did so in 1981, also against Brown. The second was Catherine McCarthy, who had eight against Yale in 1989.

He figured he'd go to the Daily Princetonian archives to see what he could find out about both of the other record holders. When he went to the Monday edition after Mahoney's big game, he didn't find anything about those eight goals, but he did see a picture of Princeton's baseball shortstop at the time, Henry Milligan.

If you don't know who Henry Milligan is, he won 10 letters at Princeton between football, wrestling and baseball. None of those, though, was the sport in which he'd become most famous.

That would be boxing, where he was an excellent light heavyweight, despite weighing only 185 pounds or so. He reached the semifinals of the 1984 Olympic Trials at 201 pounds before he lost to, well, can you name who beat him? 

The person who beat him then lost to a different Henry, this one named Tillman, in the Olympic Trial final. Henry Tillman then won the Olympic gold medal.

Give up? It was an 18-year-old Mike Tyson.

Milligan fought as a professional and even had a cruiserweight title fight. He was also an engineer. 

Meanwhile, the story about Mahoney was actually in the Tuesday "Prince" that week. Mahoney broke the record held by none other than Emily Goodfellow, one of the very few people who can say "I won more letters at Princeton than Henry Milligan," as she won 12. Goodfellow scored seven against Radcliffe in 1974 to set the record, and Jody McNeil equaled that with seven against Hofstra in 1978.

That 1981 game against Brown, by the way, also had another Princeton player who scored seven, Wiz Lippincott. 

The 1989 game was a 17-3 romp over Yale. This is how McCarthy was described in the student paper after her first goal: 

"McCarthy, who plays like Ming the Merciless and shoots like Larry Bird, was just getting warmed up."

TigerBlog has no idea who Ming is. He doesn't sound like a fun guy though.

Meanwhile, back in the present, TigerBlog was watching the women's lacrosse game against Brown on ESPN+ before he headed over to the men's game. The first quarter ended at 9-6 Princeton and took 45 minutes to play. 

Princeton's defense tightened up. Princeton's offense kept going.

Morrisroe's eight goals came after she had scored six goals on 16 shots for the season to date. Against the Bears she went off for eight goals on 10 shots. 

If you didn't notice, Morrisroe's goal total was the most in the last 35 years. Think about all of the great players Princeton has had since then who never got there. 

It was an impressive win for Princeton, especially considering the quick turnaround from its loss at Loyola Wednesday night. The Tigers then had to come back from Baltimore and head up to Providence Friday for a noon game Saturday — against the No. 25 team in the country. 

Princeton sprinted away from the Bears, and when it was over, Princeton had run all the way into the Ivy League tournament, clinching a spot in the four-team field.  

With two weeks to go in the regular season, Princeton has three games to go. There is this coming Wednesday at home against Maryland, and then the league season concludes with Saturday's noon game against Dartmouth, also on Sherrerd Field, and then a trip to Harvard April 27. 

The Ivy standings right now have Yale at 5-0, followed by Princeton at 4-1 and then Harvard and Penn at 3-2. Yale finishes with Cornell and Columbia, and Princeton can only get a share of the title if the Bulldogs lose at least one of those. Should Yale win one more game, it would definitely host the league tournament.

Princeton, though, is playing as well as it has all season. The game Saturday in Providence was another big step forward.