Seedlings

It was after 3 Saturday night Sunday morning when TigerBlog finally got to bed.

He'd been at the Princeton men's lacrosse team's NCAA tournament game at Maryland Saturday night, and the team took the bus back to Princeton after the game. As he made the drive home from the Stadium Garage, it dawned on him that probably 95 percent of the time in his life that he'd been up that late was directly related to coming back from a Princeton Athletic event.

You may draw your own conclusions about what that says about how TB has spent his life.

The quarterfinals of two NCAA Division I lacrosse tournaments are now set. Both tournaments have eight seeded teams; of the 16 teams who remain, a total of 14 were seeded.

On the men's side, the remaining teams are all seeded, Nos. 1-8. No unseeded team won on the men's side. 

For the women, there are two unseeded teams who remain. One is Michigan, who defeated No. 7 Notre Dame 15-14 on a goal with one second left in what was hardly a shocking result — the Wolverines now have an RPI of 7, so essentially they were interchangeable with the fighting Irish. 

The other unseeded women's team that's left is Florida, who took down Virginia. Florida is a mid-teens RPI team, while UVa was the No. 5 seed. 

That will have to be considered the biggest upset of the tournament.

Only once before has the men's tournament had the top eight seeds all reach the quarterfinals, and that was in 2004, the first year of the current format of seeding eight teams. 

Princeton's men fell 16-8 to Maryland in a game that was, to borrow a word from TB's postgame story, "eerie." It's incredible how eerie all five Princeton-Maryland games since 2022 have been, as the Terps get ahead early, build on the lead, never give it up and grind out possession after possession. 

To put it in perspective, if those five games, Maryland is 5-0 and has had the lead for 292:07 of the 300 minutes played.

For the women, Princeton defeated Drexel 14-9 Friday in the opening round after falling behind 4-0 and then fell to No. 2 seed Boston College in a crazy 21-16 game Sunday afternoon at BC. 

Grace Tauckus put up six goals against BC, running her career total to 140, which leaves her just outside the all-time top 10 at Princeton. Were it not for the shortened 2020 season, she would have easily reached the top five.

McKenzie Blake is already in the top 10, or at least tied for 10th, with 142 for her career. The junior had 67 goals this season, which is the third-best single-season total in program history, behind only Olivia Hompe (73 in 2017) and Kyla Sears (70 in 2022). Should she get 67 more next year, she'd tie Sears for the program record of 209.

If she maintains her NCAA tournament pace, then she'd end up with a lot more than 209. Blake was spectacular in the two games, going for nine goals after having five against Drexel. Nine goals in two NCAA tournament games? That's extraordinary.  

Here's another fact about Blake: Princeton played 18 games this season, and she had at least four goals in 12 of them. That includes nine of the final 10.

Haven Dora, a sophomore, went from 15 points last year (8G, 7A) to 24 goals and 40 assists this year. Those 40 assists tied Sears for the single-season record, by the way. Another sophomore, Amelia Hughes, is already in the top 10 in career saves; should she double her total in the next years, she'd be second all-time.

The Princeton men also had some assaults on the record book. 

Andrew McMeekin set the program record for ground balls in a season with 132, one better than Greg Waller in 1991. He also had 199 face-off wins, third-best in program single-season history, behind Waller in 1990 and, in 2022, current senior Tyler Sandoval, whose career was derailed by a torn ACL midway through last season, one that opened the door for McMeekin, who made the Ivy All-Tournament team last year and was the Most Outstanding Player this year. 

You can read HERE for more Facts, Figures and Records from the men's season.

For both Princeton teams, 2024 was special.

For the women, it was a return to the NCAA tournament after a one-year absence. For the men, it was a third-straight NCAA appearance and second-straight Ivy tournament championship, accomplished in what might have been a rebuilding year while nine of its alums were playing major roles on other NCAA teams as graduate transfers.

Still, the end of the season is never easy. As men's head coach Matt Madalon said in the lockerrom after 2 am when the team got back, you want to be the team that ends the season rolling around in the pile, but only one men's team and only one women's team gets to do so.