Weekend Lacrosse

If you spent any time on goprincetontigers.com yesterday, you might have noticed that the top of the main page was a big McKenzie Blake/Coulter Mackesy-centric. 

In fact, there was a story about both of the Princeton Lacrosse seniors after they were named Tewaaraton Award Nominees, making them among the final 25 for the highest honor in college lacrosse. They'll find out May 8 if they are among the five finalists. 

There was also a feature story that TigerBlog wrote about the two of them and how they are closing in on the Princeton career records for goals. You can read that HERE.

TigerBlog met them outside of Nassau Hall Tuesday, only he didn't realize it would be flooded with admitted high school seniors as part of the Princeton Preview. When TB arrived at the building, there were dozens of these kids and their parents — with the two Princeton seniors off to the side observing.

The contrast was pretty obvious. They're not separated by all that much in terms of years — but they were world's apart in terms of perspective. 

And it won't be too long before the wide-eyed kids are the ones who will be standing outside of Nassau Hall, smiling at the newbies to come. Hey, it doesn't seem all that long ago that Miss TigerBlog went to the Princeton Preview, and yet there is her Class of 2022 class stone along the pathway. 

Ah, the memories. 

Meanwhile, back in the present, there's the matter of the last two weekends of the regular season for lacrosse. And the record chases. 

Right now, Blake has 203 career goals, six away from tying Kyla Sears, a classmate of MTB's. Sears broke the old record of 198, which was set in 2017 by Olivia Hompe. 

Mackesy has 156 career goals, which leaves him seven away from Jesse Hubbard's 163. That's a record that has stood for 27 years, as opposed to the women's three times in eight years if Blake gets there. 

In the history of writing stories about people who are on the verge of setting a record, there's probably upwards of a 99 percent rate of "the record doesn't mean as much to me as the team." The same holds true for the holders of the records, who 99 percent of the time will say something along the lines of "I'm happy that my record is being broken."

TB hopes they're all being honest, though he suspects in many cases that's not exactly the reality. On the other hand, in this case, all four of the people TB spoke to — Blake, Mackesy, Sears and Hubbard — were being 100 percent honest. 

Both current players are completely 100 percent dialed in on their team's success. Both players on the verge of having their records broken are not the least bit upset about it. 

In the case of Sears, she was a senior when Blake was a freshman, and she has had an impact on Blake's development as a college player. Hubbard is a Princeton Lacrosse man through and through, and the fact that his record is in jeopardy is second to the fact that the team is doing so well.

The women are home tomorrow against Brown, at noon. The game matches the top two teams in the league record-wise, as both are 4-1. Penn, who ended Princeton's 11-game winning streak Wednesday night, is 3-2, along with Yale and Cornell. Only four will make the Ivy tournament. 

The men are at Penn, also at noon tomorrow.  

Princeton is currently ranked second in the country (first in RPI). The men's tournament field is set, with the Tigers, Yale, Harvard and Cornell all having clinched spots. Considering that there are two weekends to go, that's an incredible, unprecedented occurrence.

Where will the tournaments be? That is to be determined. Both teams are still able to host mathematically, though Cornell would clinch the hosting spot for the men with a win at Harvard tomorrow. Princeton's men can only host by winning their last two (including next week home against Yale) and having Cornell lose twice. 

Either way, both Princeton teams will be playing in the NCAA tournament. 

Will the goal records fall? 

It may matter to someone like TigerBlog than it does to any of the people involved. They just want to keep playing, as long as they can.