Three Championships In Three States

 

TigerBlog went to the Princeton Athletics photo storage site to try find a picture to use today after a three-championship weekend. 

And what did he find first? The picture you see above, of the women's basketball coaching staff and what appears to be either 1) a puppy, 2) a fully-grown little something-doodlish or 3) a stuffed animal. 

As TB said, it was a three-championship weekend. It was also a three-championship, three-state weekend. 

That picture was in the women's lacrosse file. That means the dog — and the large crowd at Sherrerd Field — saw an Ivy League championship in New Jersey.

If you went down to Naples, Fla., you could see the women's golf team lead the whole way for an Ivy title of its own. 

Or, if you were in State College, Pa., you saw the men's volleyball get a win Friday to secure the EIVA regular-season championship. With that comes the host role for this week's league tournament, which will come to Dillon Gym. 

So where to start (other than with the dog)? 

The men's volleyball team went to Penn State needing one win in two matches to win the regular season title and took care of that Friday, winning 3-1. The league's NCAA tournament bid goes to the winner of the tournament, which starts Wednesday with the quarterfinals.

Princeton will have a bye into the semifinals, which will be Thursday. The championship game will be Saturday. 

Meanwhile, the women's golf team was the prohibitive favorite at the Ivy League championships, but hey, anything can happen in a golf tournament. Instead, Princeton went wire-to-wire, building a three-stroke lead after Day 1 and increasing it to 14 after Round 2. 

All that was left was to put it away yesterday in Round 3, and that's what the Tigers did. The final margin was 16 strokes over second place Harvard.  

Individually, Princeton placed four in the top seven — Catherine Rao (third), Victoria Liu (fourth), Abra Richmond (fifth) and Olivia Duan (seventh).

And then there was women's lacrosse. What a difference three days can make.

This past Wednesday night, Princeton lost 15-12 to Penn at Franklin Field. It was an 8 pm start, and it was freezing. Trust TigerBlog. You don't want to be at Franklin Field on a night like that. 

Then there was Saturday. It was sunny and near 80. And it was a showdown for first place in the league. 

Princeton's loss Wednesday night snapped an 11-game winning streak, but there was no time to dwell on that. Not with Brown on its way to Sherrerd Field for Saturday's game. 

The Bears, like Princeton, came into the game with one league loss. For the winner, there would be no worse than a share of the Ivy League championship. 

Princeton's previous league title was in 2022, when the current seniors were freshmen. That was Princeton's 16th. Brown? The Bears have never won an Ivy League championship.  

The final was Princeton 15, Brown 13. The game wasn't decided until Zoe Bye drew a charge in the final minute, after Brown had scored to cut it to two and gotten the draw control. That's championship No. 17.

McKenzie Blake scored three goals, leaving her with 206, three away from Kyla Sears' career record. Princeton was led in the game by Jami MacDonald, who had four of her own. 

MacDonald, a junior, now has 98 career goals. She's two away from 100 — and 34 away from the Princeton family record, currently held by her brother Mikey, who finished his career with 132 before graduating as the 2015 Roper Trophy winner.

There is one weekend left in the regular season. For Princeton, it means a trip to Dartmouth this Saturday. The early weather forecast is for 30 degrees with snow and freezing rain. Oh wait. That was when the men were there a few weeks ago. This Saturday will be near 70 there. 

A Princeton win would clinch an outright title and the host role for the league tournament. The four-team field isn't set yet, though the Tigers will definitely be one of the teams who competes for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament (something Princeton doesn't necessarily need, since an at-large bid is pretty much assured).

Oh, and one last thing. You want to know what the dog's name is? 

How about "Scoobie Berube."

That's epic.