Thoughts Before A Big Weekend

Thoughts before the start of a big weekend ... 

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There will be at least two Ivy League championships, and possibly three, won at Princeton this weekend. 

The two that are for sure are at the Ivy League Heptagonal track and field championships, which starts tomorrow at noon and runs through Sunday at Weaver Track and Field Stadium. Coverage on ESPN+ begins both days at noon.

If you've never been to Heps, it's quite a show. There are all kinds of different events all day, and the colors of all eight schools are all on abundant display. 

The Princeton men and women both finished second a year ago in the outdoor Heps. The men have already won the Heps cross country and indoor track and field titles, which means another Triple Crown is a possibility. Princeton's men have already won 10 of those. 

The complete schedule of events can be found HERE. 

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The third Ivy title that could be won on campus this weekend is in softball, where Princeton will host Cornell for three games beginning with one today at 3:30 and then continuing with a doubleheader tomorrow beginning at 12:30.

Right now Princeton is 12-6 in the Ivy League, while Harvard and Yale have both finished their regular seasons at 14-7. To give you a better sense of what's at stake, there's this from the goprincetontigers.com preview story:

If Princeton wins two games to finish 14-7 in the league, it would host the Ivy League tournament because it would have the best record against the other tied teams, whether that's Harvard and Yale or Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Princeton swept both Yale and Dartmouth and took one from Harvard, while Yale swept Harvard, Harvard took two from Dartmouth, and Dartmouth took two from Yale. 

If Princeton wins one or fewer games this weekend, Yale would host the Ivy tournament as it would have the best record among the possibly tied teams, whether that's only Harvard or both Harvard and Dartmouth. Princeton needs one win or one loss each from Columbia and Brown to clinch a bid in the league tournament.

The Ivy League tournament begins Thursday, either in Princeton or at Yale.

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TigerBlog was about to put his stuff on the bus yesterday morning when he realized something wasn't quite right. What could it be? 

As it turned out, it was the women's tennis bus. When you have a bunch of buses stacked up at this time of year, it's a great sign.

The women's tennis team, ranked 39th nationally, was on its way to Charlottesville for the NCAA tournament, where it will take on No. 26 Washington tomorrow at 10 am. The winner of that match will then take on the winner of fifth-ranked Virginia and Long Island U. 

Whoever wins that much Sunday will advance to the Super Regionals next weekend. 

As TB realized he was headed to the wrong bus, he saw women's tennis coach Jamea Jackson. Had he know then that Jackson was about to be named the Ivy League Coach of the Year after guiding the Tigers to a fifth straight Ivy title.  

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The women's tennis team is not the only Princeton team in Charlottesville for the NCAAs this weekend. The men's team will be there as well. 

The Tigers, ranked 33rd, take on No. 41 Virginia Commonwealth today at 1, followed by No. 3 Virginia and NJIT at 4. The winners meet tomorrow at 4 in the second round.

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The correct bus for TigerBlog was the one in front of the women's tennis bus. That would be one for the men's lacrosse team, which was heading in the opposite direction for women's tennis. 

The men's lacrosse destination was Ithaca, where Cornell will be hosting the Ivy League tournament tonight and Sunday afternoon. 

It begins at 6 tonight, when second-seeded Princeton takes on third-seeded Yale in a rematch of a game from six days ago, when Princeton won 15-8 in New Haven. Top-seeded Cornell will take on Penn at 8:30 or so; the winners play Sunday at 1. All three games can be seen on ESPNU and ESPN+.

Princeton is staying in the same hotel as the Penn team. You know who else is staying in this hotel? Nobody.

You have Princeton on the second floor. You have Penn on the first floor. Just before dinner last night, Princeton head coach Matt Madalon and Penn head coach Mike Murphy were having a casual conversation in the hallway. 

Should both teams win tonight, it would be an interesting dynamic to be sharing a hotel as they would be preparing to play in the ILT final. For now, it's been a whole bunch of "hey, how you doing?" with nods back and forth as the teams walk by each other. 

The person who so far has had the toughest balancing act is the woman at the front desk, an amiable woman named Kimberly who has to convince each team that it is actually her favorite. Kimberly owns the hotel along with her husband, and it has been in her husband's family since the 1970s. If you think you work hard, you should see how much Kimberly does at her hotel.

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The women's lacrosse team had to negotiate the explosion on I-95 in Connecticut, which will keep the highway closed for the next few days, on its way to its own Ivy League tournament, this one at Yale. 

Princeton, like the men seeded second, open the tournament against third-seeded Penn at 4 today, followed by the game between top-seeded Yale and fourth-seeded Harvard at 7. The final is Sunday at 1, with all three games on ESPN+.

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Another team that is hopping on a bus this weekend is the baseball team, who plays three at Columbia, also beginning this afternoon (2) and continuing with a doubleheader tomorrow (first pitch at 11:30). Columbia has already clinched the Ivy League title and the host role in the league tournament. 

Princeton is currently in second place and would clinch an Ivy tournament spot with two wins, or if any number of other scenarios play out beyond that. Complicating matters is that Harvard and Yale play next weekend, not this weekend, so the final outcome might not be known after the weekend.

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The complete weekend schedule can be found HERE.

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Lastly, TigerBlog would like to congratulate his longtime dear friend Sue Byrne of Harvard Athletics, who retired yesterday after a long career in sports marketing with the Boston Bruins first and then with the Crimson.