Scrimmage Day

TigerBlog got some pretty good feedback from yesterday's entry on the Princetonian dogs.

Among them was this: "Well, doggone it, that was a really nice read!"

TB actually wrote that one after the Friends of Princeton Lacrosse golf outing. Once again, after finishing 18 holes, TigerBlog realized that he has a love/hate relationship with the sport. 

Love — As in, he hits enough good shots that he knows that if he played regularly, he'd get to be pretty good eventually. Hate — As in, he hits enough awful shots that he knows that will never happen. 

He can see why the game is addicting to the people who love it and can play it well. He also can see why people want to smash their clubs over the knees and hurl them into the nearest water hazard.

Oh, and in case you were wondering who the bulldog in the picture on goprincetontigers.com was, that was Watson, former Princeton women's lacrosse player Shea Smith's dog. Kudos to Princeton's gregarious photographer Shelley Szwast for being spot-on with that. 

This, of course, is Shelley's favorite time of year. In her world, there's her favorite part of the year (when Princeton is playing games) and her least favorite part (when Princeton isn't).

There has been, to date, one Princeton game to start the new year. That was a 1-0 win over Miami for the women's soccer team this past Saturday.

TigerBlog will sort of being going to a game today. It's actually a field hockey scrimmage, at Monmouth (start time is 4:30).

The Princeton field hockey team plays its first real game in eight days (Friday, Sept. 6), when it will take on Louisville on the Cards' home field as part of the ACC/Ivy League Crossover Challenge. Princeton will then take on North Carolina two days later, while UNC will face Penn Friday and Louisville Sunday.

Princeton field hockey has won 27 Ivy League championships, the most by any women's team in Ivy history (okay, grudgingly, TB will admit that Harvard women's squash has also won 27). Will Tiger field hockey regain the league this fall? 

Princeton fell in the championship game of the inaugural Ivy League tournament a year ago on a goal that barely squeezed across the line in the final minute of regulation against Harvard. This year's team will have a very similar, and very different, look.

There are 15 returning players on this team, and every one of them played in huge moments in 2023. That's a good starting point.

Then there are two players back who missed either all or essentially all of last season. One of those is Grace Schulze, who was Princeton's leading returning scorer a year ago — only to go down with a shoulder injury one minute into the second game of the season and miss the rest of the year. 

The other? That's Beth Yeager. Perhaps the name is familiar? 

Yeager is back at Princeton after 1) being a first-team All-American each of her first two seasons and then 2) took last year off in hopes of playing in the Olympics. As it turned out, Yeager made the U.S. team for the Olympic qualifying, then was part of the dramatic way the team reached the field of 12 for the Games and then started every game for the United States in Paris.

With all of that experience, Yeager is back in orange and black. At the opposite end of the experience spectrum is a potentially dynamic freshman class of seven players who are looking to make their own marks. 

As usual, Princeton will be playing its brutal non-league schedule, including both of last year's national finalists (North Carolina defeated Northwestern, who will be at Princeton Sept. 29. There are also five other NCAA tournament teams from a year ago on the schedule.

For today, it'll be the first chance to see how all the pieces fit together. 

It's also a chance to go to West Long Branch in late August. That's a place as well, what with the beach in walking distance of the field. 

Scrimmages aren't quite the real thing. That's the whole point. 

They are a good taste of what is to come. For Tiger Field Hockey ’24, hopefully it goes well into November.