"If I Call You Up Crying, I Know I Will Hang Up Laughing"

TigerBlog was at the field hockey team banquet Sunday night at the Springdale golf club. 

As you have probably surmised, TB loves working with the team. The coaches are great. The players are all very welcoming. It's definitely a family vibe to be around the program — and that certainly came through with every heartfelt word from each speaker.

As with most team banquets, the focus was the seniors. In this case, one junior came up to say a few words about one senior, and then another. The words and the emotions behind them were clear in every case.

At one point, junior Ella Hampson was talking about senior Aimee Jungfer when she said something that TB wrote down, so as not to forget it. Here is what she said:

"If I call you up crying, I know I will hang up laughing."

How perfect is that? 

The field hockey team won the Ivy League championship this past fall. It was the 28th for the team, which ties the Harvard women's squash team for the most by any women's team in league history. The Tigers also reached the NCAA quarterfinals, marking the 18th time the team has gotten at least that far. 

Banquets, though, are not about that. That's why what Hampson said had nothing to do with winning or losing or individual honors or stats or anything else.

It was about the bond that grows out of being college teammates, spending all those years together in almost every kind of situation. It's something that, if TB may be preachy a bit, can only evolve over time, a lot of time — and with the constantly changing landscape of college sports, it's something that is going to be destroyed for a lot of those athletes. 

At Princeton, though, it is still the best part of the experience. TB sees it with field hockey and men's lacrosse. He saw it through his daughter's experience with women's lacrosse. Others see it with every other team.

And that's the end of today's lecture. Make sure you do the reading for next week.

Also, it's enough with the silly April Fools Day stuff. Thankfully that's a full year away.

You know what's only a few hours away? That would be the first home night game in the history of Princeton softball. 

It'll be the Tigers and Lehigh, squaring off at Cynthia Paul Field tonight. First pitch is at 6.

TB was able to see a few innings of one of the games at the new stadium the other day before he left for Dartmouth. It is an impressive place, as is the entire new Meadows Campus complex, including the racquet center. He's guessing the softball field will look great under the lights. 

Princeton has the reigning Ivy Pitcher of the Week with Brielle Wright, who pitched 13 innings last weekend and allowed no runs while striking out 13. Wright is the Ivy League record holder for saves in a season and career, but she has made more starts this year than she had in her first two years combined. 

Princeton is currently 6-0 in the Ivy League with sweeps of Harvard and Yale, leaving the Tigers two games up on Dartmouth and Columbia.

From the goprincetontigers.com preview story: Princeton is 6-0 in the Ivy for the first time since 2008, when the team started 14-0 in the league on the way to an 18-2 start that set an Ivy record for league wins that has since been equaled but not surpassed.

The Tigers head to Dartmouth for three games this weekend, hopefully to encounter better weather than TB did last weekend. You can't play softball in that weather, obviously.

It'll be the same long bus ride up for the team, though. It is on such bus rides that the relationships that last forever are solidified. 

You get no wins or losses for those rides. What you do get is what Ella Hampson said at the banquet Sunday night. 

You'll remember that long after you forget the details of any game. 

Everything Under The Sun — Except The Sun

TigerBlog was in the press box at Scully-Fahey Field prior to the men's lacrosse game between Princeton and Dartmouth Saturday afternoon. 

A little more than 300 miles to the southwest, it was 80 degrees and sunny. Even further to the south, it felt like August. 

In Hanover, N.H.? Uh, no. 

At the other end of the small press box, Dartmouth broadcasters Matt Corsetti and Andrew Sood were pre-recording their intro. Their first take was just about flawless — except that they said that Princeton had won its Ivy League opener one week earlier against Harvard. 

This put TigerBlog in a tough spot. He knew that Princeton had actually played two Ivy League games already. Should he tell them? Who would notice? 

Well, TB erred on the side of accuracy, and he's glad he did. When he pointed out the small error, Corsetti and Sood decided to do a second take. And because of that, Corsetti ad-libbed a great line when he said that Scully-Fahey Field had "Snow. Sleet. Hail. Freezing Rain. There's everything under the sun — except the sun."

Brilliant stuff. 

Yes, the final weekend of March brought all of that to Dartmouth. As it turned out, there was mostly rain by the second half, after the forecast called for as many as six inches of snow, which is the amount that fell 25 miles north of Hanover. 

The weather ended up not being the main story of the game. The goalie play was.

Dartmouth's Mason Morel made 21 saves. Princeton's Ryan Croddick made 13. That was 34 saves against 19 goals, 11 of which came from Princeton. That's 11-8 Tigers, if you didn't want to do the math. 

Dartmouth cut it to one late in the fourth quarter but never tied it. The Tigers were up 10-8 with just under a minute to play when Croddick picked up a loose ball, turned it over to create a one-on-one situation and then made an amazing save to keep it at two. 

It's a final in Hanover: No. 4 Princeton 11, No. 18 Dartmouth 8.

And check out this save from Ryan Croddick #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/jLM6tQkhev

— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) March 29, 2025

The win improved Princeton to 6-2 overall. Incredibly, seven of Princeton's first eight opponents are in the top 14 of the current RPI, and the Tigers are 5-2 in those games. The other game was against Rutgers, who has been in and out of the top 20 and is now 22. 

Princeton has wins over No. 4 North Carolina, No. 5 Harvard, No. 6 Penn State, No. 10 Duke and No. 14 Dartmouth in addition to Rutgers, with losses to No. 2 Maryland and No. 8 Cornell. 

The Tigers have a No. 1 ranking in the RPI and a No. 1 ranking in strength of schedule. It's been a remarkable start to the season. 

The Tigers will now finish the regular season with five straight games against teams not in the top 20, with four of those at home, including tonight at 7 on Sherrerd Field against Lehigh. The teams played a Tuesday game a year ago as well, and the Tigers won 12-10. 

What makes this Princeton team special is that it is, in every sense of the word, a team. As its head coach, Matt Madalon, likes to say to his group: "Everything we achieve, we achieve together."

Just look at some of the remarkable numbers that this team has produced:

* against Dartmouth, Princeton had 12 caused turnovers — and 12 different players had one each. TB has never heard of such a thing before.

* in its win against Harvard two Saturdays ago, Princeton got nine goals from offensive midfielders and four from its attack Against Dartmouth, Princeton got eight goals from its attack and one from its offensive midfielders. 

* Princeton has regularly played eight longsticks and six shortstick midfielders. That's depth.

* Princeton has only committed seven penalties all season. 

The game tonight is followed by one Saturday at noon at home against Vermont. After that are three Ivy games on three Saturdays: home against Brown, at Penn, home against Yale. 

Madalon always talks about having two ways to get into the NCAA tournament, via the automatic bid or by an at-large. Princeton has been to the NCAA tournament for three straight years, in 2022 (reaching the Final Four) as an at-large and then the last two years by winning the Ivy tournament. 

This year's team is well-positioned for an at-large bid with the wins it already has on its resume. There's a long way to go, though — and every game brings its own challenge. 

Tonight will be no different — though at least the weather looks like it's cooperating.

100 Years Of Princeton Fencing

What better place is there to start talking about the ongoing celebration of 100 years of Princeton Fencing than with ... Pete Carril.

The Hall-of-Fame men's basketball coach used to talk about people who have long since passed away while their names live on in awards. Carril would say that the people who win those awards honor the person whose name is on their trophy, even if they have no idea who that might be. 

Carril was speaking specifically about the Benjamin Franklin Bunn Award, which is the highest honor for the men's basketball team. TigerBlog can still hear Carril as he basically says "Whoever he was, you owe it to him to be at your best every day."

The same, TB presumes, applies also to buildings, boats — and even a fencing room. 

The fencing room in Jadwin Gym is located on C Level, two floors below where Carril's teams played. It is officially the Stan Sieja Fencing Room.

Who was Stan Sieja? Well, for one thing, like Carril he only would wear bowties, the kind that he tied himself. Also like Carril, he drew heavily on his family background, Sieja from Poland and Carril from Spain.

Stan Sieja was the coach of Princeton fencing from 1946-82, his tenure ending with his death in October of 1982, just prior to the start of the season. How well regarded was he? 

Consider this, from one of his former fencers, Paul Schmidt, the captain of that final team:

It is difficult to paint a portrait or give an idea of a man like Stanley Sieja to those who did not know him. Any student who has worked closely with a professor on a daily basis for four years will have an inkling. Any student who has been on an athletic team with a coach who was absolutely devoted to the individual and group development of his students and who loved his work and his students beyond necessity, any student who has loved his or her coach to the extent that the coach ceases to be a weekday training figure and becomes a dominant influence in thought and action — that student also will have a grasp of the quality of this man. When someone dear to you dies, it seems always that little incidents and personality characteristics remain most closely in the memory. 

To this day, every fencer, male or female, who steps into that room on C Level is honoring Sieja's legacy. 

To see the fencers who go in and out of that room all these years has given TB a real appreciation of how difficult the sport is. It requires balance, stamina, hand-eye coordination, quickness, strength. When you see fencers take off the gear after a workout, you can tell by how soaked they are. 

Fencing on the Princeton campus goes back longer than 100 years, all the way to the 1800s, when lessons were part of physical education. Intercollegiate fencing goes back to the 19th century as well, and there were individual Princetonians who competed.

It wasn't until 1925 that an official team began to compete. It wasn't until 1988 until there was a women's varsity team. 

Fencing has produced the third-highest number of Olympians at Princeton — a total of 23 in all — behind rowing and track and field. The most recent Olympic Games in Paris last summer saw Maia Weintraub win gold, making her the fifth Tiger to win a medal, along with bronze medals for Henry Breckinridge in 1920, Tracy Jaekel in 1928, Maya Lawrence in 2012 and Susie Scanlan in 2012.

Princeton won the 1964 NCAA championship (the men) and 2013 (co-ed). The men have won 18 Ivy League championships. The women have won 13.

There have been nine men who have won NCAA individual titles:  Chambless Johnston (1951, sabre); Henry Kolowrat (1954, epée); Kinmont Hoitsma (1956, epée); Bill Hicks (1964, foil), Harald Winkmann (1994 épée), Max Pekarev (1996, sabre), Soren Thompson (2001, épée), Jonathan Yergler (2013, épée) and Tristan Szapary (2024, épée).  

There have been women who have won NCAA individual titles: Eva Petschnigg ’03 (2000, foil), Eliza Stone ’13 (2013, saber), Anna Van Brummen ’17 (2017, epee), Kasia Nixon (2018, epee), Maia Chamberlain (2018, saber) and Weintraub (2022, foil).

This weekend, more than 200 alums and friends will gather to celebrate the first 100 years of Princeton Fencing. There will be a lot to celebrate for a program that has brought so much to the history of the University.

They've certainly done Stan Sieja proud. 

Road Laxing

TigerBlog received five emails yesterday regarding his "Princeton Connections" puzzle from yesterday. 

He can sum them all up this way: "love the idea; puzzle was impossible."

Okay. TB gets it. And he would say that it's more a function of how hard it is to choose the clues that balance making it challenging without being way too hard. 

Here are the answers:

* New Haven (Mich.), Reading (Pa.), Syracuse, Ithaca — hometowns of Princeton Directors of Athletics (John Mack, Gary Walters, Ken Fairman, Mollie Marcoux Samaan).

* Sacramento, College Park, Philadelphia, New York City — cities where Princeton basketball has won an NCAA tournament game.

* Christopher, Martin, Rose, Sierra Moon — first names of Princeton athletes who were better known by nicknames, with Christopher (Kit) Mueller, Rose (Podie) Lynch, Martin (Tiger) Bech, Sierra Moon (Bear) Goldstein. And yes, that's really Bear Goldstein's name. 

* Tyler, Adele, Ryan, Jesse — first names of Princeton athletes who hold their program record for career goals (Tyler Lussi, women's soccer, Adele McCarthy-Beauvais, women's water polo, Ryan Kufner, men's hockey, Jesse Hubbard, men's lacrosse).

TB will definitely try this again and hopefully make it more doable without making it too easy. 

In the meantime, snow. 

What? Yes, snow. TigerBlog said yesterday that the weather for Princeton tomorrow will be sunny with temps around 80. 

Ah, but in Hanover, N.H.? One weather forecast calls for morning snow tomorrow, shifting to rain, with a high of 35. Another forecast has the possibility of up to six inches of snow.

Neither is really ideal, since the Princeton men's lacrosse team will be playing Dartmouth at noon. 

Further south, in New Haven, the women's lacrosse team will be at Yale tomorrow. The forecast all week there was for warmth but rain.  Now it's changed to warmth and sun. That's better. 

Both of these are very big games. 

For the women, Yale had reached as high as fourth in the national polls with its 7-0 start, only to lose at Stanford and then an Ivy-opening 14-11 loss at Brown last Saturday. Princeton is one of the three teams who are unbeaten in the league at 1-0, along with 2-0 Cornell and 1-0 Penn. 

Princeton has won seven straight since an opening day loss to Virginia. The Tiger offense has been rolling, with a 16.88 goals per game average that leads the league and is third in Division I. McKenzie Blake is third in Division I (first in the league) in goals per game with 4.88 per game (that's a lot), and Haven Dora is third in Division I in assists per game with 3.63 (again, that's a lot).

Yale, on the other hand, allows seven goals per game, which is tops in the league and fourth in Division I. TB loves games where you have a highly ranked offense against a highly ranked defense.

The Princeton men in midseason are ranked No. 1 in the RPI, which is the main tool when it comes to NCAA selections. Already Princeton has three top five RPI wins (No. 3 North Carolina, No. 4 Penn State and No. 5 Duke, all on the road), along with another top 10 win (No. 8 Harvard) and another top 20 win (No. 20 Rutgers). 

The Tigers have two losses: No. 2 Maryland and No. 6 Cornell. Princeton's strength-of-schedule is No. 1 in the country as well. 

It's an almost unheard of resume for this part of the season. 

For all of its success, Princeton had no first-team All-Americans in the Inside Lacrosse midseason team released yesterday. There was one second-team pick (Coulter Mackesy) and one third-team pick (Chad Palumbo), with five honorable mention picks (Nate Kabiri, Jackson Green, Michael Bath, Colin Mulshine, Ryan Croddick). 

It's a pretty good testimony about how Princeton has been doing it this year — with depth all over the field. And offensive efficiency, where the Tigers rank fourth in Division I.

Dartmouth, on the other hand, is coming into the game with an RPI of 17 and a 7-1 overall record. Most recently, the Big Green defeated Penn 9-8 in overtime in their Ivy opener last Saturday night at Franklin Field. 

Dartmouth is a young team under a young, second-year head coach (Sean Kirwan) who clearly has the team pointed in the right direction. It's a confident team, something you could tell by 1) watching Dartmouth play Penn and 2) by the fact that the team leads Division I in ground balls per game.

So that's two big Princeton lacrosse games this weekend. And two wildly different weather forecasts.

Enjoy the sun if you're in Princeton. 

And now TB will go and pack all of his rain/snow gear for the trip. 

Princeton Connections

How many of you play the "Connections" game every day? 

TigerBlog started doing so a few months ago, and now it's part of his daily routine. First, it's "Wordle," and then it's time for "Connections." 

Yesterday TB pushed his "Wordle" winning streak to 100. For "Connections," he's lucky if he can get through an entire week without losing 

The way "Connections" works, for those who don't play, there are four rows with four words or phrases in each. You have to click on the four boxes that have a connecting theme, and you win if you can do so before you miss four times. 

Simple, right?

You'd be surprised how many times you realize that the word in the box was used in a context that you didn't realize until your fourth miss. It's much tougher than "Wordle," that's for sure. 

And to think, there was a time when TB played the daily "Jumble" in the newspaper each morning. 

TB thought it would be fun to put together a "Princeton Athletics Connections" game today. There are a few issues, though. 

First, this isn't something you'll be able to click on. Second, you'll have no way to know how many misses you have. 

Third, TB isn't sure if he should give you the answers today or start with that tomorrow. And last?

He actually has to come up with the clues. This also isn't as easy as you might think.  

Okay, here are the four rows (TB used a Tiger emoji to separate them, clearly):

Martin 🐅  Ithaca 🐅  Tyler 🐅  New Haven 

Jesse 🐅 New York City 🐅  Reading 🐅 Christopher

Syracuse 🐅  College Park 🐅  Rose 🐅 Philadelphia

Ryan 🐅  Sacramento 🐅  Sierra Moon 🐅 Adele 

That sort of works. And he even centered them. 

So what do you think? TigerBlog can't give you the answers right away. You need some time to work on it. 

Yeah, he's going to start tomorrow with the answers. Feel free to email him (jprice@princeton.edu) if you have the answers.

He did send it out immediately after finishing it to a focus group (of one), Duncan Yin of the Class of 1982. He's about as big a Princeton Athletics fan as there is, and he's the one who first got TB to try "Connections." 

How did he do? 

Well, first he pointed out that there's also a Sports Connections puzzle each day? Who knew that? 

Then he also said that as constructed, it might be a bit too difficult for anyone. He suggested offering a hint, and TB will say this: "Ivy League cities" is not one of the answers.

In the meantime, there's the matter of this weekend. First, the Princeton weather is going to be the definition of "going out like a lamb," with clear skies and temps Saturday approaching or exceeding 80. 

It's the perfect weather for baseball and softball, no. Both of those Princeton teams will be home again this weekend after opening their Ivy seasons last weekend also at home, where both went 3-0. 

In fact, there were eight three-game series in Ivy baseball and softball last weekend — and there were six sweeps, three in baseball and three in softball. 

This time around, it'll be Yale at Princeton in softball, with a single game tomorrow at 3:30 and then a doubleheader Saturday starting at 12:30. Yale and Penn played their three-game series the week before the other teams (and Yale swept), meaning 1) seven of the eight opening series were sweeps and 2) that Yale is 5-1 in the league after taking two of three against Cornell last weekend.

The baseball team hosts Columbia, another team who did the sweeping last weekend (against Brown). There is a doubleheader Saturday at 11:30, with a single game Sunday at noon. 

There is plenty on the Princeton Athletics dance card this weekend, including plenty of rowing at home. You can see the entire schedule HERE.

And tomorrow, TB will be back with two things: the answers to his first stab at "Princeton Athletic Connections" and weather forecasts that aren't as good as the one for Princeton. 

Hint - one of those calls for snow. And unfortunately, it's where TB will be while it happens. 

Home Court

TigerBlog figured he'd do what he used to do in college while writing a paper. 

That's when he would do just enough of the reading to bluff his way through however many pages were required. Hey, he graduated. He has his diploma and everything.

In the case of yesterday's sort of assignment, or self-imposed assignment, he figured he'd watch just enough of the Ashley Chea documentary to be able to get 700 or so words for today's entry. There was only one problem.

It was way too riveting not to watch the entire show. And so TB did, all 1:24 of it. 

You can do so by clicking on this LINK.

Chea, of course, was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy League basketball player this past season, which was her sophomore year at Princeton. If you are a Princeton fan, you really should do what TigerBlog did, which was to watch the entire show.

The documentary on PBS is entitled "Home Court," and it follows Chea through her final three years at Flintridge Prep in California. It shows her knee injury, her recovery, her return to her high school team and club team and ultimately how her high school career ended. 

It also shows what her life was like as a first-generation American from a Cambodian family and the cultural differences between her upbringing here and her mother's upbringing in the old country. Chea's relationship with her high school coaches is one of the focal points of the production. 

Oh, and there is also the recruiting process. You'll see some very familiar faces in the show if you watch it, including none other than Shelley Szwast, the athletic department photographer. And, of course, Carla Berube, the Princeton women's head coach.

There are two kinds of really good documentaries. The first is when the subject is something that you're mildly familiar with from a few decades back that is now brought into clearer focus, like the one on Netflix about singer George Michael. Once you see it, you have a whole new appreciation for a subject you hadn't considered in a long time.

The other is when the subject is of interest to you but you don't necessarily know a lot about it. That's the case here. 

TigerBlog has watched Chea play for two seasons at Princeton. She plays with supreme confidence and energy, and her love of the game comes shining through every time she's on the court. 

She's also obviously a big-time player. She more than doubled her points per game from her freshman year (6.0) to this past season (12.6), as well as her rebounds (1.4 to 3.2) and assists (1.2 to 3.6), as she helped Princeton to a sixth-straight NCAA appearance.

Her documentary goes back way before she ever stepped foot on the Princeton campus. In fact, the Chea family is from Los Angeles, where her parents ran a donut shop. 

The show starts with video of Chea as she does ballhandling drills, with these words on her voiceover:

"When I play basketball, I feel like there's nothing around me that can stop me," Chea says in a voiceover. "Like if a meteor came and flew into the gym, that won't stop me from playing basketball. It's like my safe space."

There are so many highlights throughout the 84 minutes, including: 

* video of a very young Chea as she dribbled and shot during timeouts during her father's rec league games and of when her father put her through drills, including in their garage when it would rain
* the story of Asian basketball in Southern California through the years — with a special mention of basketball in Japanese internment camps in World War II
* her recruiting trips to UC-Santa Clara, Cal and then ultimately Princeton

There is great video of her as a high school and club player (there's also a high school teammate of hers who seemed to have shot 100 percent from three-point range for her career, all from the corner). 

And there are two other parts that deserve special notice.

First, there is a viral clip of Chea from a high school state playoff game where she puts up a three and then turns 180 degrees away to face the student section before it splashes in. The clip went viral on social media, with more than 10 million views.

The other is the story about her grandmother, who barely escaped the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia by bravely riding her bike away from sleeping soldiers who had detained her. 

It is not a fluff piece; it delves into some pretty deep issues that Chea confronts, as all teenagers do, only in a very public way. 

The project originally was going to be a documentary on Asian basketball players. Then there was a thought of featuring another Flintridge alum — Kaitlyn Chen, the three-time Most Outstanding Player at the Ivy tournament during her Princeton career who is now playing in the Sweet 16 with UConn as a grad student. Chen appears a few times in the movie.

In the end, the decision was made to feature Chea, who spent three years being filmed almost constantly. It was cut down to that 1:24 time frame. 

It's 1:24 that you owe it to yourself to watch. 

Staying Updated

Well, that was a pretty dull first two rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. 

The field is down to the Sweet 16, and there is no team still standing that isn't from the SEC, the ACC, the Big Ten or the Big 12. There weren't too many riveting games, and one of the ones that was — Colorado State vs. Maryland — ended with a "did he walk or didn't he" controversy and the losing coach who bolted for the Big Ten (Minnesota) within hours.

Oh, and there was Maryland's Derik Queen, the one who either did or didn't walk, in the postgame interview, when he was asked what he likes most about his coach Kevin Willard. His response? 

"He did pay us the money."

Oh well. 

It reminded TigerBlog of when he was first in the newspaper business, way, way, way back when. A pitcher at a private school came in with the bases loaded in a one-run game in the last inning and got three strikeouts to end it. His quote? "That's what they pay me for." 

TB is pretty sure he was speaking metaphorically. It was the early 1980s after all. 

In the meantime, here are a few updates from the weekend:

*

Princeton women's swimming and diving produced two All-Americans at the NCAA championships this past weekend at Washington State University. Those two would be sophomores Eleanor Sun and Dakota Tucker, and both did so in the 400 individual medley, where they finished 12th and 16th.

This was the first time since 2010 that the program produced multiple All-Americans in one season. It was a pretty good year for the Tigers, with a third-straight Ivy League championship with a team that is still pretty young, with a very strong sophomore class.

The men will will have their turn at the national championships in the same pool. Mitchell Schott, who has had a monster year, will compete as an individual in three events: 200 butterfly, 200 IM and 400 IM, as well as in two relays: 400 free (Schott, Patrick Dinu, Noah Sech and Brett Feyerick) and 800 free (Schott, Dinu, Sech and Arthur Balva). 

Schott, by the way, scored a perfect 96 points at the Ivy League meet last month.  

Divers Aidan Wang and George Callanan will also compete. 

*

TigerBlog wrote about the softball team yesterday and its perfect weekend at its new facility. Karis Ford, who hit .750 for the weekend, was named the Ivy League's Player of the Week. Ford also had the first hit at the new Paul Field, with a home run in the first inning of Game 1 of the three-game sweep of Harvard.

The baseball team also began its Ivy season with a three-game sweep, in this case against Dartmouth. It was a long weekend, with 32 innings, including a Game 2 that saw the first 12 innings played Saturday and the final two Sunday before Jake Koonin won it on a two-run single in the bottom of the 14th, after Dartmouth had taken the lead with a home run in the top of the inning. 

Princeton won the first game 8-5 Saturday, and Game 2 was tied 5-5 after seven innings. And eight. And nine. And 10, 11, 12 and 13. Koonin, in fact, had left the bases loaded in the 12th —but he wouldn't let the second chance get away.

Princeton won the third game 8-1, behind seven shutout innings from Liam Kinneen.

The Tigers are at Rutgers tomorrow before hosting Columbia for three more this weekend. 

*

The men's volleyball team had itself a league Player of the Week this weekend as well. In fact, it was Nyherowo Omene, who earned the EIVA Offensive Player of the Week for the third time this season.  

The 6-7 Omene is a senior who was a first-team all-league selection a year ago. This season, the South Holland, Ill., native is in the top 10 in the EIVA in five stat categories, including kills per set (first, 4.22), aces (second, 0.42), hitting percentage (third, .356), blocks (10th, 0.75/s) and points (also first, 5.08 per set).  

This weekend, Princeton will be at Sacred Heart for matches Friday night (7) and Saturday (4). Princeton is currently tied for first in the EIVA with George Mason.

A Perfect Debut

There was a time a few decades ago where you could walk from Gulick Field to Lourie-Love Field to Class of 1895 Field, which were the homes of Princeton field hockey, men's and women's soccer and softball. 

If you did so, you wouldn't see any of the following:

* a team room
* indoor plumbing
* a non-wooden seat
* a concession stand
* a concourse, for that matter
* a press box

For those who were never there, a large parking lot used to be where there is now a smaller lot and the neuroscience building, opposite Class of 1952 Stadium — which was back then a place to park tractors and trucks and such. It was a short walk from that large parking lot over to Gulick (the field hockey field) and Lourie-Love (soccer). Then, beyond Lourie-Love sat Class of 1895. 

All three had old, rickety wooden bleachers, no bathrooms and not a single amenity. If you were here when those were the long-time homes of Princeton's teams, you probably feel the same way as TigerBlog. 

They were certainly charming facilities. Princeton certainly did have big moments at all of those fields. They just went the way of a lot of old stadiums in all sports. And now they all have way more modern replacements.

TigerBlog couldn't help but think about the old days as the Princeton softball team opened a new facility, the Cynthia Lynn Paul ’94 Field, which made its debut this weekend as the home of Princeton Softball on the Meadows Campus. It opened in style, with a three-game sweep of Harvard. 

The new field is the first venue for Princeton Athletics named for a female alum. After graduating from Princeton in 1994, Paul would found Lynrock Lake LP, an investment management firm based in Rye Brook, N.Y.

She was also a Princeton softball player during the Class of 1895 Field era, which lasted from the 1980s until 2019. She won an Ivy League championship in 1991. 

She was all smiles when she posed for pictures on her field, and why wouldn't she be? The new facility is amazing, with its glistening turf field, batting cages, restrooms, seating for 300 and press box. 

Unlike 1895 Field and the temporary field at Strubing Field, it was also built with ESPN+ in mind, which means that the broadcasts are also pristine. 

TigerBlog watched the broadcast Sunday. He ha not been to the field yet, so he asked his friend Pattie Friend, whose husband Lloyd was in the Class of 1965 and who is as big a Princeton sports fan as you'll find. She was at the game yesterday, and here is how she described it:

"It's fabulous. It's so comfortable. It's engaging. It just feels right. The seats are great. The views are great. And you're so close to the field. The players know you're there. I didn't find one thing where I said 'oh, I don't like this.' It was like being at Yankee Stadium for free. It was wonderful to be there. I liked the old one, but this is so much better. I can't wait to go back."

Thanks Pattie. That sounds like a good endorsement.

As for the on-field event, it couldn't have gone any better for the Tigers. 

Princeton and Harvard have been the standard for Ivy League softball in recent years and, between the old playoff and the new tournament have been the last two league teams standing the last three years. 

The first regular season games played at the new field were Saturday, when Princeton won 8-0 and 6-0. The first hit was actually a home run, off the bat of the third Tiger to come to the plate, Karis Ford. 

The first winning pitcher was Brielle Wright, who threw a complete game. Cassidy Shaw was the second, also with a complete game shutout. 

Princeton completed the sweep with a third winning pitcher, this time Keala Hollenkamp, who pitched 2.1 innings of one-hit relief as Princeton came from 5-3 down with a four-run fifth and then, after Harvard tied it, with a sacrifice fly from Ford in the bottom of the fifth to make it 9-8. Hollenkamp made it stand up after allowing a two-out double in the seventh before getting a fly ball to end it.

And that was the end of the weekend for Princeton, and the debut of Cynthia Lynn Paul Field. 

It couldn't have been more perfect.

Spring Is Here

Spring is here!!!!

Hey, what's a few exclamation points between friends? If there is a day that deserves them, it's when spring arrives. 

Already the days are getting longer. The temperatures are rising. TigerBlog spoke to someone yesterday who said that he wasn't quite ready to put his snowblower away, but TB assured him he could. 

Probably.

You can tell it must be spring, since the schedule for the weekend includes the Ivy League openers for baseball and softball. TB will get back to that in a few moments. 

*

First, there is still a little bit of winter to go. And there was still one very special moment for a Princeton wrestler — in the City of Brotherly Love, no less.

The NCAA wrestling championships are being held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Princeton's Luke Stout, the No. 11 seed at 197, won his first match yesterday, defeating Mickey O'Malley of Drexel 4-3. That win vaulted him into the second round last night, where his opponent was the sixth seed, Mac Something of Pitt.

Mac what? Mac Stout. There they were, brother against brother, in Round 2 of the NCAA championships. 

It was 10:17 last night when they took to Mat No. 6. There was no announcer on the ESPN+ broadcast, but you could hear the arena public address in the background. He said, TB is pretty sure, that this was the first brother vs. brother match in the NCAA championship history. He definitely said "this is really happening" when the match began and he introduced the two brothers.

It looked like any other match, once the reality of the fact that it was two brothers went away. In the end, it was Mac who won, 4-2. 

Oh, and instead of the cursory post-match handshake, there was a hug between the two.

*

This weekend will, as TB said, see the opening games in Ivy baseball and softball. For Princeton softball, that means three games against Harvard, the last two teams standing in Ivy softball each of the least three years. 

More than that, it's the debut of Cynthia Lynn Paul '94 Field, located on the Meadows Campus. It is the first Princeton athletic venue named for a female alum. Paul was a member of Princeton's Ivy League title-winning team in 1991 after growing up in Cherry Hill, N.J., and went on to found Lynrock Lake LP, an investment management firm based in Rye Brook, N.Y. 

There are two games tomorrow, beginning at 12:30, and then one more Sunday, also at 12:30. 

The baseball team is also at home, against Dartmouth for three, with a doubleheader tomorrow starting at 11:30 and then a single game Sunday at noon. 

*

The men's lacrosse team hosts Harvard tomorrow at noon. Princeton is 4-2, but it was the No. 1 team in the NCAA's first RPI release. 

How tough has Princeton's schedule been so far? Going by the RPI, Princeton has wins over No. 3 North Carolina, No. 4 Duke, No. 6 Penn State and No. 25 Rutgers, with losses to No. 2 Maryland and No. 5 Cornell (last week in Ithaca).

Where is Harvard in this? That would be 8th. And Princeton's next opponent, Dartmouth? That would be 17th. 

Harvard opened its Ivy season last week with a home win against Yale. 

*

McKenzie Blake and Coulter Mackesy continue to chase the career records for goals with Princeton lacrosse, which currently stand at 209 (Kyla Sears for the women) and 163 (Jesse Hubbard for the men). 

Blake and her teammates will be in Baltimore tonight to take on Towson. The Tigers, by the way, are the No. 6 team in the women's RPI, the highest rating of any Ivy team.

Blake currently has 175 career goals, leaving her 34 away from Sears. At her current pace of 4.71 goals per game (third-best in Division I), she'd finish the regular season with 212. 

As for Mackesy, he has 143 goals in his career. With three more he would tie Chris Massey for second place at 146, and he's obviously 20 behind Hubbard's 163. If he continues at his current pace of 3.33 per game, he'd finish the regular season with 166.

*

The complete weekend schedule can be found HERE.

A Night Of Effort And Frustration

Welcome to what many consider to be the start of the best weekend in sports. 

It's time for the NCAA basketball tournaments, with their wall-to-wall games starting today and running all weekend and into next week. By the time this bonanza ends, there will be 16 women''s teams and 16 men's teams left

As you get set for your endless TV watching, keep in mind what TigerBlog says every year about the NCAA men's tournament: It's the only major sporting event that gets less exciting with each successive round. 

You remember St. Peter's and FDU and, of course, Princeton for its run to the Sweet 16 two years ago. You remember Gabe Lewullis' layup that knocked out UCLA in 1996. You remember the great upsets from the first round, with famous shot after famous shot. 

You don't remember who reached the Final Four those years. For TigerBlog, that makes this tournament more special, not less special. 

TigerBlog has been to a lot of these NCAA first rounds, and they are even better in person than they are on TV. There is an electricity in the building that is unrivaled, with the idea that something magical could happen at any time.

TB has also been in the postgame locker room after those magical moments — and after the ones where the magic wasn't there that night. It's an undeniably crushing place to be when it doesn't go your way. 

As much as winning in the tournament is incredible, there is also the harshness of losing. It's one and done, survive and advance — and if you don't, you go home. 

The Princeton women's basketball team experienced the latter last night in the First Four game against Iowa State. It was a game that could have gone either way, and ultimately it went the way of the Cyclones. 

Final score: Iowa State 68, Princeton 63. 

And just like that, it's over. 

Princeton did, as Pete Carril would have said, gave a good account of itself. Even after falling behind by nine in the first quarter, Princeton turned things around, going up 38-23 at the half after an amazing second quarter that ended with a 14-0 Tiger run. 

Iowa State turned it up in the second half, led by the unstoppable inside force of Audi Crooks, who went for 27 points on 12 of 21 shooting. Crooks was as advertised, which is to say one of the best scorers in women's basketball and one of its most efficient. When she caught the ball anywhere near the basket, it was, as one of the announcers said on TV at one point, "over." 

It's not that Princeton didn't battle, especially Parker Hill, who spent most of her night matched with Crooks. That was not an easy assignment, not at all. Hill finished her night with 10 points and 12 rebounds, as well as three of the Tigers' nine blocked shots (Olivia Hutcherson also had three). She gets a solid "A" for rising to the challenge. 

Princeton also got 19 points, seven rebounds and a team-best Fadima Tall, as well as 15 points from Ashley Chea and Skye Belker.

Still, if any one moment summed up the night for Princeton, it was the Belker three attempt from the corner with nine seconds to go. It looked all the world like it was in, took two laps around the rim and then floated away. All Tiger head coach Carla Berube could do was throw her hands skyward. 

Yes, it was a night of frustration. But it was also a night of effort. Princeton certainly played hard. So did Iowa State. 

The trip to the NCAA tournament for Princeton was its sixth straight. The Tigers were also part of the historic achievement of having three Ivy teams in the tournament, a first. 

Princeton started four sophomores last night against Iowa State. It also played almost the entire season without Madison St. Rose, who injured her knee in November and missed the rest of the season. 

Given how much Princeton lost to graduation and the loss of St. Rose so early, this was another exceptional season for the program.  

You want to keep playing for as long as you can. You want to keep it going. You want to make history. 

Some years, you do all three of those things by playing this week. That's certainly the case of the 2024-25 Princeton women's basketball team. 

Well done, Tigers.