Spring Is Here, Sort Of?

TigerBlog had just hit "save" on the content management system to post the first pregame story of the 2025 men's lacrosse season when he may have actually muttered "this is exciting." 

As he has written many times before, that's the attitude that is needed to be in this business for as long as he has been.

It's the start of the season for three different Princeton "spring" teams this weekend. 

The softball team joins the men's and women's lacrosse teams as their seasons all get underway in the next few hours. It begins today with the softball opener in Chapel Hill, where the Tigers play Drexel at 12:30 and then North Carolina at 3. Princeton will play North Carolina again tomorrow at 1:30, followed by games against George Mason tomorrow at 4 and Sunday at 10. 

Princeton has three four straight Ivy League championships. As you recall from last spring, the Tigers defeated Ole Miss in the NCAA tournament before bowing out.

The women's lacrosse team is home tomorrow against Virginia at 1. The Tigers are ranked 17th, while the Cavs are ranked eighth.

The men's team is at Penn State, also at 1 tomorrow. Princeton is ranked fifth as it heads into the season in search of a fourth straight trip to the NCAA tournament. Penn State, already 2-0, is ranked 10th. 

It was the Nittany Lions who bounced Princeton from the 2023 NCAA tournament 13-12. The leading scorers from that game was Princeton's Coulter Mackesy (six goals) and Penn State's Ethan Long (five goals), and both are back. 

Speaking of Mackesy, he scored 40 goals last year — and enters his senior year 40 goals away from the school career record of 163, held by Jesse Hubbard since 1998. On the women's side, McKenzie Blake scored 67 goals last year — and she is 67 away from the program record of 209, set in 2022 by Kyla Sears. 

That's a crazy stat.

Anyway, spring is here? 

Winter is here too. 

The women's hockey team is home for its regular season finale — but not for the final time of the year at Baker Rink. Princeton hosts Union tonight at 6 and RPI tomorrow at 3 (which will also be Senior Day). 

No matter what happens this weekend, Princeton will be hosting a first-round ECAC playoff game next weekend, since the Tigers are locked into the top eight of the standings. It's very likely, though not locked in, that one of this weekend's opponents will be back at Baker next weekend.

For the men's hockey team, there are still three weekends left in the regular season, beginning this weekend at RPI (7 tonight) and Union (6 tomorrow). Princeton is currently in ninth place in the standings, which means moving up one spot would be necessary to get playoff home ice. 

Ahead for the men are a home weekend against Yale and Brown and a trip to St. Lawrence and Clarkson.

As for basketball, the women are home twice, against Yale tonight at 6 and Brown tomorrow at 5. The Ivy League standings, as TB has said, are pretty well defined right now, with Columbia at 8-0, Princeton at 7-1 Harvard at 6-2 and Brown at 4-4, followed by four teams with at least six losses. 

The biggest game of the weekend — at least in the big picture of the league, not from Princeton's perspective — is Sunday, when Harvard is at Columbia. Harvard is in the interesting position of being in third place in the standings, having lost to both Princeton and Columbia the first time through, but being the highest ranked league team in the NET rankings at 35, followed by Columbia (42) and Princeton (46).

Harvard needs a win over Columbia to have any realistic shot at a regular season championship. Princeton needs to sweep to keep its NET high and to stay in position to play Harvard and Columbia with a championship on the line. 

For the men, it's a somewhat similar look at the standings, where Yale is 7-0, Princeton and Cornell are 5-2, Dartmouth is 4-2 and then everyone else has at least four losses. The Tigers are at Brown tonight at 7 and Yale tomorrow at 8.