TAGD 11

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TigerBlog had lunch with his kids the other day.

It's a bit of a rarity these days, what with both of them out in the world, making their own ways. It's always something he enjoys very much. 

There was a time that doesn't seem all that long ago when his two little children were regulars on the Princeton campus, at games and camps and preschool and who can remember what else? 

Well, TB can remember. How he could he forget? They were among the absolute best times of his entire life.

Today they're both in their 20s, with TigerBlog Jr. not all that far away from 30. How did that happen? If you've been reading TB since he first began doing this back in 2009, you're probably shaking your own head at that as well.

Miss TigerBlog, as you probably know, went from growing up on the Princeton campus to being a student on the same campus. She graduated in 2022 with a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and as a four-time letterwinner for the women's lacrosse team. MTB ’22.

Today? She works in aerospace engineering while working on her master's degree in the same field. TB is impressed with his daughter. 

Why bring this up today? 

Because it's Tiger Athletics Give Day, that's why. 

What does one have to do with the other? That's simple. 

It's TB's belief that his daughter would not have been able to plow through the grueling major she chose the way she did without the balance that being a varsity athlete brought. That experience has left her with valuable life-lessons — and when TB says "life-lessons," he's not using that as a throwaway term but in a real, tangible, visible way — that she is applying now and will forever.

To have a life-changing experience like that is an immeasurable asset. Forget the championships (and Princeton won the Ivy women's lacrosse championship each of her years). It's that experience that is the biggest part of what Princeton Athletics is all about.

And that experience is what an investment in TAGD is all about. 

Giving financial support is always about what you are investing in and believing in the positives that your investment will bring. In this case, you can be 100 percent certain that your investment is having a big impact. 

TigerBlog is partial to his daughter's experience, of course. You can pick any team you want, though. Pick any player at random you want.

They all benefit from what happens today. And that benefit is then paid off in a big way by their lifetime contributions to society. 

Princeton Athletics has produced aerospace engineers, and so much more. There are doctors, lawyers, educators, coaches, business professionals, military leaders. They all draw every day on what they learned as Princeton athletes. 

TAGD began in 2014 as a way of celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Princeton intercollegiate athletic event, a 27-16 win over Williams in a baseball game on Nov. 22, 1864. Full disclosure: TB forgot that this past Nov. 22 was the 160th anniversary.

As TB thinks back to the planning for that first TAGD, he remembers tons of ideas that were thrown around, any number of different names that were considered. Who would have guessed where it would have gone from there. 

Where has it gone? 

TAGD has grown from Year 1, when nobody in those meetings had any idea of what to expect, to now, where it is a wildly successful annual event that has helped provide the kind of experience that Princeton Athletics prides itself on being able to provide, for every athlete who comes through every program. 

As always, TAGD's rules are the same this year. Only gifts that are given from now through midnight tonight will count towards the challenges of total donors and total dollars. 

Today is a day of fun for all of those involved. There will be social media posts and friendly competition between the various Friends' Groups. There will be phone banks and outreach directly from the athletes. There will be celebrations of Princeton teams, past and present. 

Underneath it all, though, will be the real benefit of TAGD. 

Pick the team. Pick the athlete. Go back and look to those athletes from 2014, when TAGD first started, and see what they're doing today. Look ahead to what they'll be doing 10 more years from now, 20 more years from now. 

That's what your gift is supporting.

Big Weekend At Baker

Tomorrow will be the 11th edition of TAGD, the 24-hour Tiger Athletics Give Day fundraising challenge that has been so overwhelming well-received and successful in its first full decade. TigerBlog will have much more on TAGD tomorrow.

For now, HERE is the link to the TAGD website. Keep in mind that only gifts received in the 24 hours beginning at 12:01 am tomorrow will count in the various challenges. 

So how was your Thanksgiving weekend? TigerBlog hopes it was full of family, friends, fun and food. Oh, and football.

TigerBlog watched a lot of football the last four days. He saw some astonishing things, such as an NFL coach and quarterback who both failed to call timeout until it was way too late. Now the coach has taken that timeout with him as he begins unemployment. 

There was the craziness of an eight-overtime game between Georgia and Georgia Tech, a game that TB watched all the way until the end and still isn't sure which team he wanted to see win (Georgia finally did 44-42). It was wildly dramatic stuff, though TB did come away wondering what's wrong with a tie after a certain number of OTs? Football, it seems, still hasn't figured out the perfect way to conduct overtime.

There were four separate Saturday college rivalry games that ended up with "flag planting" controversies. If you're keeping score, those four were: Arizona State-Arizona, North Carolina State-North Carolina, Florida-Florida State and of course Michigan-Ohio State.

In all four games, the visitor won the game and attempted to gather at midfield to "plant" its flag in the home team's logo. All four times, the home team objected — strenuously. The result? Ugliness. 

It was not a great weekend to be an Ohio State fan. The Buckeyes came into Michigan game ranked No. 2 in the country with only a close loss to No. 1 Oregon. There weren't too many who thought the Wolverines could extend their winning streak in the series to four games, and yet that's what happened. Michigan, 6-5 heading into the game, wiped out Ohio State's offense in the second half, shutting the Bucks out for the final two quarters and not even allowing a first down for the final 20 minutes to win 13-10.

If that wasn't enough, the OSU men's hockey team game into its two-game weekend series at Princeton ranked 12th nationally with a 9-2-1 record. Both of those losses, by the way, were to Michigan State, the top-ranked team in the country. 

Ohio State also brought a top 10 scoring offense to Baker Rink. So what happened? 

Arthur Smith happened, that's what. The sophomore goalie had a huge weekend, stopping 66 of 68 shots he saw over two games. The result was a pair of Princeton wins, both by 3-1 counts. 

Oh, and by the way, TB watched the ESPN+ broadcast and the announcers — Cody Chrusciel and Sean Kase — were excellent. What sport can't Cody do well? 

It wasn't just the Arthur Smith show of course,. Princeton went up 3-0 Friday night before a late Ohio State goal, and freshman Jake Manfre figured in each of the three Tiger goals, with two power-play goals and an assist. 

Manfre added another assist Saturday night, giving him two goals and two assists for the weekend after he had one goal and one assist for the first six games. 

The second game was scoreless after two periods before David Ma put Princeton on top 13 seconds into the third. It became a 2-0 game when Alex Konovalov scored his first career goal (you could see his beaming smile through his facemask afterwards), but the key moment came when Ohio State went man-up for seven straight minutes, the first five non-releasable. 

Would the Buckeyes take advantage? Actually, OSU would score one goal, which was the same as the Tigers, as Brendan Gorman scored shorthanded. 

All in all, it was a great performance by a Princeton team in its first season under head coach Ben Syer, who is looking to establish his style, his culture, his way of doing things. The best way to measure progress is by wins, and the Princeton team that might have been a bit uncertain Friday pregame was an obviously much more confident one by Saturday postgame. 

These are the kinds of moments that define programs, especially rebuilding ones. It's one thing to see your team is getting better in practice. It's another to do so against a team like Ohio State. 

And that was the weekend in men's hockey. 

And remember — tomorrow is TAGD. Don't make your gift until after midnight tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving

The Princeton men's basketball team will be in Jadwin Gym today at 4 to take on Nazareth, which makes the trip down from Rochester for the game. 

If you think Princeton has been busy of late, with three games in four days at the Myrtle Beach Invitational, consider what the Golden Flyers' schedule has been this week: win over RIT this past Thursday, loss to Rochester Saturday, a home game against Oswego State last night and then the five hour ride to New Jersey for the game tonight. 

There isn't much that is going on with Princeton Athletics the next few days, which is a stark contrast to how things have been around here the last few weeks. There's only one fall team that is still competing, and that's men's water polo, who is a week away from the NCAA tournament at Stanford. 

In fact, there is the men's basketball game tonight and then two home men's hockey games against Ohio State, Friday at 7 and Saturday at 4, and that'll be the entire home schedule for this weekend. Ohio State, which brings a 9-2-1 record to New Jersey, is ranked 12th by the U.S. College Hockey Online poll and 11th in the more important Pairwise ratings. 

Of course, if you're an Ohio State sports fan, it's likely that the hockey games are not your No. 1 focus this weekend, since, you know, it's Ohio State-Michigan football at the Horseshoe Saturday. Also, if you look at the Ohio State schedule, you'll notice that coming up on Jan. 3, the Buckeyes will take on the Wolverines at Wrigley Field.

The only other team Princeton who will be playing this weekend will be the women's hockey team, which is at Boston University this afternoon at 2 and then at Stonehill Friday (5) and Saturday (1). BU is ranked sixth in the women's Pairwise.

Why is there so little on the schedule?

Well, as you know, tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

TigerBlog has included these thoughts on the holiday almost every year, and he offers them again:

As holidays go, you can't do much better than Thanksgiving. It's got it all, really: a huge meal (with turkey, no less), football, family, history (dates back to 1621), start of a four-day weekend for most people, leftovers. It's even a secular holiday, so every American can dive right in, regardless of religion.
 
The Lions and the Cowboys, obviously, always play at home on Thanksgiving, and the NFL has now added a third game (maybe a little too much). Beyond watching football, how many out there have played their own Thanksgiving football games, all of which, by the way, are named "the Turkey Bowl?"

The holiday may lag behind Christmas in terms of great Hollywood movies, and "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is no match for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Still, there are some great moments in movies and TV shows around Thanksgiving.

Rocky and Adrian had their first date on Thanksgiving – "To you it's Thanksgiving; to me it's Thursday," Rocky said romantically – as did Meadow and Jackie Jr. on "The Sopranos" (it didn't quite work out as well as it did for Rocky and Adrian). "Everybody Loves Raymond" had two pretty good Thanksgiving episodes, the one where Marie makes a low-fat dinner and the one where Debra makes fish instead of turkey. As an aside, TigerBlog's Aunt Regina once made Cornish game hens instead of turkey, so he knows how they all felt. And of course, there was the Thanksgiving episode of "Cheers," which has the big food fight at the end.

The Woody Allen movie "Hannah and Her Sisters" starts and ends on two different Thanksgivings. "Miracle on 34th Street" is a Christmas movie, but it does start with the Thanksgiving parade in New York City.

And of course, there is the best of all Thanksgiving movies: "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." It'll make you laugh a lot and cry a little, and it ends on Thanksgiving.

TB wishes everyone a great holiday and hopes that maybe you take a few minutes to think about what you really are thankful for these days.

Bodies Of Water

 

Quick question: Who is the only unbeaten team in college men's water polo this season? 

Hint - the team is the No. 3 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament, which begins Friday, Dec. 6, with four matches at Stanford. The second of those four matches, by the way, will see Princeton take on the fourth seeded host team.

If you watched the NCAA Selection Show yesterday, then you saw the answer. TigerBlog was a bit surprised to see it.

The answer? Fordham, who brings a 31-0 record into the postseason. The third-seeded Rams will be taking on Long Beach State in the opening round.

A long time ago, like 88 years ago, Fordham football had an offensive line nicknamed "The Seven Blocks Of Granite." Most of those seven men went into coaching after they were done playing, including the most famous of the group, Vince Lombardi.

When TB thinks of Fordham athletics, he always thinks of the Seven Blocks first. Then he thought about the 31-0 team this year and thought — that would be a terrible nickname for water polo. Blocks of granite? 

Yes, there are seven players in the pool at any given time, so that part works. The other part? 

This is a sport that requires a lot of treading water. Blocks of granite wouldn't be great at that. How about the Seven Balloons of granite? No, no. Blocks of balloons? Let TB work on it.

Fordham defeated Princeton 12-9 back on Sept. 27. Since Fordham and Princeton are on opposite sides of the draw, TB is now rooting for a Rams-Tigers rematch in the championship game. 

Fordham improved to 31-0 by beating Luis Nicolao and Navy in the final of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference final 18-11. Princeton also won its league title Sunday as well, taking the Northeast Water Polo Conference title match.

Brown took down Harvard 11-9 in the semifinals to reach the final for the first time since 2016. That would be as far as the Bears would get, though, because Princeton is playing on another level right now.

The final score of the championship game was 17-6, and it earned the Tigers their own automatic NCAA bid. This was the fourth straight league title for Princeton, by the way. 

Including the semifinal win over Iona, Princeton outscored its two NWPC opponents by a combined 39-17. The Tigers bring an eight-match winning streak to California, and none of those eight wins has been closer than four goals.

TB watched the Selection Show yesterday. It was hosted by Jeremiah Johnson, which was a familiar name. From where? It was the title of a Robert Redford movie in the 1970s.

This was the perfect Selection Show. The entire thing took six minutes, and there was no need to come up with any kind of filler or anything like. Ironically, the shows for sports that are done on ncaa.com are much tighter and way better for the teams involved than the ones that are stretched out for network television. 

UCLA is the No. 1 seed in the tournament. USC, who beat UCLA in the final of their conference tournament, was the No. 2 seed, followed by Fordham and Stanford. To give you a sense of what kind of accomplishment it is for Fordham to have gotten this seed, consider that, in a tournament that began 55 years ago, the other three seeds have combined for 33 national titles.

The bracket has UCLA against Salem (West Virginia), who is making its first NCAA appearance. The winner of that match will take on the winner of the Princeton-Stanford match that follows. 

The other side has USC against California Baptist and Fordham against Long Beach State. The entire tournament will be held in three days, from Dec. 6-8.

Princeton defeated Long Beach State 14-12 during the regular season. It also has two losses to UCLA, one in overtime and one by two goals. Princeton also lost 10-7 to USC, meaning that Stanford is the only seeded team the Tigers haven't played this year. 

Princeton reached the NCAA semifinals a year ago, taking down UC-Irvine 12-7 in the quarterfinals before falling 17-13 to UCLA.

Meanwhile, back at the nickname ... hmmm ... hey, TB's got it:

Bodies of Water. The Seven Bodies of Water. 

Perfect.

"I Couldn't Be Prouder To Be A Princeton Tiger"

John Volker ran 75 yards for a touchdown to start his Senior Day and ran six yards for a first down to seal a victory on his Senior Day. 

It happened Saturday afternoon on Powers Field, where Princeton defeated Penn 20-17 to wrap up the 2024 season. Volker finished with 130 yards on 15 carries, and then, once it was over, it was time for him to be interviewed on the ESPN+ broadcast.

Or at least after he could be tracked down. He was celebrating, posing for pictures and clearly taking in the moment. 

Finally, there he was, his Princeton football uniform with a headset instead of a helmet. And what did he say? 

"I Couldn't Be Prouder To Be A Princeton Tiger."

House Call.@JohnVolker3 | #JUICE 🍊🥤 pic.twitter.com/OXvp41SV1C

— Princeton Football (@PrincetonFTBL) November 23, 2024

Wow. That came straight from his heart.

Can anything ever be more genuine and more perfect at the end of a season? When you're standing there knowing that you've played the last game you'll ever play for your college team and you're walking off your home field a winner, does the record really matter at that point?  

Besides, more than any other sport, football is the one where you can forget what brought you to this point on the final day of the season, largely because each game is its own mini-season. In Princeton's case this season, that meant one more chance to win a mini-season Saturday against the Quakers.

There were four Ivy League football games Saturday, three of which had a direct impact on who would win the championship. The fourth was Penn-Princeton, though you couldn't tell that by watching. 

That's not how it works in football. There's no playing out the string. It's probably the physicality involved, or the fact that there's so many more practice days than game day.

In the end, Princeton and Penn played a championship-level game, in intensity and drama at least.  

Volker's big day was a huge part of the win, of course. On this day, though, it was the Princeton defense that was the difference maker.

Consider these two stats: 1) Princeton's defense had allowed 40.3 points per game for the last four games and 2) Penn had averaged scoring 44.7 points per game for its last three.

It was a 17-10 Penn lead at the half, but the second half was a thing of defensive beauty for Princeton. For the final 30 minutes of the game, and the season for that matter, Princeton allowed zero points, forced four turnovers, scored a touchdown of its own (a Caden Wright fumble return) and allowed 108 yards of Quaker offense. 

Penn's first half drive chart went punt, punt, touchdown, touchdown, field goal. Penn's second half drive chart went punt, fumble, fumble, punt, interception, turnover on downs, fumble. 

That's great defense. And it's really great defense considering it came against an offense that was on fire the last three weeks.

The last day of the Ivy football season saw chaos break out, as Yale's 34-29 win over Harvard came shortly after both Dartmouth (over Brown) and Columbia (over Cornell) had finished off their own wins. The result? A three-way tie for first at 5-2 between Harvard, Columbia and Dartmouth. 

It's the second straight year that the league has had tri-champions. For the entire history of the league prior to that, it had only happened three times in all. 

It wasn't the 2024 season that Princeton would have wanted, but it ended on a high note. And there was something tangible at stake, since the win pushed the Tigers into a three-way tie for sixth, as opposed to finishing eighth, which would have been the case with a loss.

It is amazing what a win can do for you. When the Tigers left the field Saturday afternoon, they did so in a good place. They did so knowing that they hadn't quit, on the season or on themselves. They knew they had accomplished something together that they will remember long after they forget what place the standings said. 

They were able to walk away, knowing that Volker had had spoken for all of them: 

"I couldn't be prouder to be a Princeton Tiger."

Talking Tournaments

You can't make too many betters saves than Princeton men's soccer goalkeeper Andrew Samuels did last night against Akron in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. 

Only one snuck by Samuels, and only one was good enough for Akron, who defeated Princeton 1-0 on a night that featured snow flurries in Ohio.

Still, Samuels was amazing. he turned away shot after shot from the powerful Akron offense, robbing the Zips time and again. The shots came mostly from within a five-yard radius or so, and they came with great velocity. And frequency. 

Samuels, a sophomore, did not play in any games last year. He played in 12 this season, starting eight — and he'd never made more six in a game. In fact, he made 26 in those 12 games, an average of 2.2 per game. 

Last night? He made nine. And not one of them was routine.

If you can make a better save than the ones Samuels did, though, it's possible that Giuliano Fravolini Whitchurch had in the second half to keep it a one-goal game. Samuels first got his hand on a shot, but the rebound seemed like it had about a 100 percent chance of heading into the net. 

Instead, Whitchurch, the Princeton defender, changed direction and doubled back to the goal, just in time to somehow, pretty much miraculously, keep the ball in play. The play was reviewed, and the great play by Whitchurch was confirmed. 

By the way, the men's soccer game ended about 60 seconds before tip-off of the men's basketball game in Myrtle Beach against Wright State. 

Princeton's postseason run ended with the loss. So did the NCAA singles run for men's tennis player Paul Inchauspe, but not before he became the fifth Princetonian to earn All-American honors. 

Inchauspe reached the Round of 16 in the new-look NCAA singles tournament, which for the first time is being played in the fall. To get there, Inchauspe defeated the No. 1 seed, Sebastian Gornzy of Texas, in the second round before falling yesterday to Florida State's Corey Craig in three sets.

In the "small world" category, by the way, Craig and Akron's Emil Jaaskelainen, the leading scorer in the country who was shut out by Samuels, were both at the same school last year — Boston University.

Speaking of tournaments, there are two that get underway on the Princeton campus today, and both have the same prize for the ultimate winner: an NCAA tournament bid. 

The Northeast Water Polo Conference has its tournament in DeNunzio Pool beginning today and running through Sunday's final. Princeton is the top seed, and as such it has a first-round bye into tomorrow's semis.

The games today begin at 1 with fourth-seeded Iona and fifth-seeded MIT, followed by No. 2 Harvard and No. 7 Connecticut College and lastly No. 3 Brown against No. 6 LIU. Princeton will play tomorrow at noon against the Iona/MIT winner, and the other semifinal will match the other two winners, at 2. 

The championship game is at 1 Sunday. 

Princeton is ranked sixth nationally. The Tigers have had great success in California against the country's top teams and would love to get another shot in the NCAA tournament. 

Meanwhile, the Ivy League women's volleyball tournament also will be at Princeton starting today, this time in Dillon Gym. It begins at 4 with top-seeded Princeton against No. 4 Brown, followed at 7 by No. 2 Yale and No. 3 Cornell.

Just a week ago it looked like this tournament was heading to New Haven, until Cornell came back from two sets down to take down Yale 3-2. That outcome, coupled with Princeton's 10-game Ivy winning streak to end the league schedule, made the Bulldogs and Tigers co-champs and, with the tiebreaker in Princeton's favor by virtue of its sweep of third-place Cornell, brought the tournament here. 

Princeton will bring the conference Player of the Year into both tournaments, with Roko Pozaric in men's water polo and Kamryn Chaney in women's volleyball. 

There are other events going on this weekend as well, including the final football game of the season as the Tigers host Penn tomorrow at 1. 

The complete schedule is HERE.

The Tigers And The Zips

As facility photos go, it's hard to imagine there are too many better than the one on the Akron athletics website of its soccer facility, FirstEnergy Stadium.

The picture shows the field during a game, and that by itself shows a relatively full house. Had that been all there is to it, then it still would have been a great shot.

That isn't all there is to it, though. There is also the sky.

One half of the sky is blue, or at least the fading blue of twilight. The other half is overcast, with the orange of the sun as it blends into the darkness of the clouds. 

The contrast of the serenity of the sky and the tumultuous action on the field is what makes the picture great. 

There's no way to tell who the opponent was that evening the photo was taken. Tonight? The opponent on that same field will be Princeton.

It'll be the opening round of the NCAA men's soccer tournament tonight at 6 (ESPN+), as the Tigers take on the host Zips. For the winner there is a date Sunday at Indiana. 

Why is Akron the Zips, by the way? As you probably know, Akron is famously known as the Rubber Capital of the World, and it's been the home of companies like Firestone, Goodyear and B.F. Goodrich. 

It was B.F. Goodrich that, shortly after 1900, began manufacturing rubber shoes that became quite popular and were known as "Zippers." Around that time, the university began to look for a mascot and nickname, and a student named Margaret Hamlin came up with the winning entry: Zippers — winning her the $10 first prize.

Once zippers replaced buttons on the majority of pants, though, the nickname was shortened to "Zips."

And so it'll be the Tigers and the Zips. They've played three times before, though not in the last 19 years. The most notable note from those three games is probably the fact that in Princeton's 2-0 win over Akron in 1987, current head coach Jim Barlow had an assist on the first goal. 

Akron is, of course, a longtime soccer powerhouse, with one NCAA title (2010) and three NCAA runner-up finishes (most recently in 2018). The game tonight marks the 36th time the Zips have reached the NCAA tournament. 

Princeton, for its part, is making its 12th NCAA appearance. The Tigers reached the 1993 Final Four. 

Akron earned an at-large bid after winning the Big East Conference Midwest Division during the regular season with a 7-0-1 record. The Zips, by the way, are an affiliate member of the Big East for men's soccer but a full-time member of the Mid-American Conference for everything else.

Most recently, Akron fell to Georgetown in the Big East tournament semifinals 2-1 in OT. The Zips rank sixth in Division I in scoring offense (2.47 goals per game) and fifth in Division I in goal differential. 

The main man for Akron is Emil Jaaskelainen, from Bolton, England. Jaaskelainen, a grad transfer from LIU who was a two-time NEC Player of the Year, leads Division I in goals per game with 1.21 per game, which would rank 151st out of 203 Division I teams. 

If any team has a reason to be brimming with confidence, it's Princeton. The Tigers earned their spot in the NCAA tournament by winning the Ivy League's automatic bid this past weekend at the league tournament, taking down Cornell (3-2) and Penn (3-1). Both of those teams earned at-large bids as well in the three-bid Ivy.

Princeton played with skill and toughness in the Ivy tournament, but it was more than just that. Princeton also played like a team that believed in each other and itself, one that came from 2-0 down against Cornell to win in OT and did so without ever looking fazed in any ways. 

The final against Penn came eight days after Princeton lost to the Quakers at home and yet looked so comfortable and in control the entire time, building a 3-0 lead before a late Penn goal. Oh, and this Penn team is the No. 6 overall seed in the NCAA tournament. 

Again, kickoff in Ohio will be at 6. It'll be chilly there (temps in the 30s) but that's a small price to pay to be able to play this deep into November. 

Princeton has earned this chance. Now it will look to make the most of it. 

The Agony Of Defeat

Hopefully you read yesterday's guest entry from Alex Henn about her experiences at the Ivy League men's soccer tournament. 

You did? Then you really loved it. You didn't? You can read it HERE.

When Alex asked TigerBlog for some guidelines, he told her that she should write about the emotions of the weekend. Clearly, she listened to him.

Her piece was all about emotion. She's far too young to know the significance of the words "the thrill of victory; the agony of defeat," and yet she's had the chance to experience its truest meaning this past weekend.

So did TigerBlog. 

By the way, this is where those words originated:

If you're in TB's age range, then you didn't need to watch that, though if you did, it probably gave you chills as well. 

Meanwhile, back at TigerBlog's weekend, there was the NCAA field hockey first and second rounds. For Ivy League champion Princeton, there was a 1-0 opening round win over Boston College Friday and then a tough 1-0 loss to St. Joe's in the quarterfinal Sunday on St. Joe's home field. 

Also Friday, the women's soccer team lost a 2-1 decision at Virginia in the opening round of its NCAA tournament. Like the field hockey team, the women's soccer team also won the Ivy League title — and then added the Ivy tournament crown as well. 

TigerBlog wasn't around the women's soccer players after their loss. He was around the field hockey team, though, and he expects the reactions were similar.

The immediacy of what happens in the NCAA tournament is something that has to be seen up close to truly be appreciated. It's there ... and then it's gone. In a blink. A great season that led a team to this point, to the NCAA tournament, ends in such an unforgiving way.

It hurts. 

It's one thing when a team overachieves and is "just happy to be there." It's one thing when a team is playing a far superior team and has no expectation of winning.

It's another when it's a 50-50 game against a 50-50 opponent. That was the case for the two Princeton teams this past weekend.

When it ends, you're left to mull over what might have been different, what move could have been made, what bounce went the wrong way.  The final horn can be the cruelest sound.

As you're dealing with your emotions, you're also watching the other team celebrate. It's a very, very, very emotional moment for everyone involved.

In the case of the field hockey team, the one bounce came with five minutes to go, when St. Joe's tucked in the only goal of the day. When the clock reached all zeroes, the Hawks and their fans celebrated wildly. They were off to the Final Four this weekend in Michigan. 

Princeton gathered in front of its bench, huddled together. There was everything to say, and nothing to say. 

It's a moment like this where sports are really something very unique. The thrill of victory on one side; the agony of defeat on the other. It was a cavernous emotional range that followed a razor-thin margin on the field. 

It's hurts. And it's supposed to hurt. And yet at the same time, it's very much worth the hurt, to go through all the things teams go to as a season progresses from preseason to this moment. Each season is its own unique organism, regardless of how many seniors were lost or starters return. 

Teams put in so much time together in all sorts of ways, and the games themselves are the smallest amount of time of all of that. TigerBlog has been so fortunate to have had the opportunity to see this from the inside of so many teams across so many sports through the decades he's been at Princeton.

The good news is that the agony fades. In the immediacy, the team gathers and then heads to the postgame tailgate. In college sports, somebody wins and somebody loses, but everyone eats. 

It takes more than a great buffet to make everything better though. It takes a while. It's different for everyone. 

There are some losses that will sting forever. But the agony? That raw emotion of the moment? 

That dissolves — and it leaves you with the knowledge that you gave it your all, did your best and had a great year.  

And you did it together. Nothing will ever change that, or ruin it. 

TigerBlog was in the field hockey huddle after the game Sunday. He saw the sadness and the tears, but he also knew that one day, they'd remember how special 2024 was for all of them more than anything else.

Guest TigerBlog - The Joy, Excitement And Optimism Of Alex Henn

 

Alex Henn is new to Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications. She is a recent graduate of Georgetown, and this is her first post-college job.

Is it off to a good start? Well, she's the sport contact for three fall sports: men's and women's cross country and men's soccer. And how are those teams doing? Both cross country teams won Ivy League championships, and the men's soccer team just took down Cornell and Penn to win the Ivy tournament, earning a spot Thursday at Akron in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. 

Alex was in Philadelphia this weekend for the soccer tournament, and she'll be with the Tigers as they head to Ohio. To say that she was nervous before the tournament would be a bit of understatement. To say she was excited would be likewise, though it's the good kind of nervous and the good kind of excited — the kind that, as TigerBlog always says about himself, shows that she's in the right field. 

After Princeton's win the other day, TB asked Alex if she'd like to write a Guest TigerBlog about her experience at the Ivy tournament. He told her it needed to be 500-700 words; she sent him back nearly 1,400. After he read it, TB texted her to say that it made him smile. He's pretty sure you will smile too.

Well done, Alex:

Optimism. 

 

When I walked into my hotel room on Thursday night, beginning my trip with the Princeton men’s soccer team to Philadelphia for the Ivy League tournament, that’s what I first noticed: a fairly tacky, generic, yet encouraging piece of wall art that simply said, “optimism.”  

 

At the risk of sounding dorky, I consider NCAA soccer postseason to be the best time of the year. For soccer fans, November and December are always sure to bring lots of emotions and memories, all with the backdrop of a graying Autumn and the start of the holiday season. 

 

This year, however, is extra special. It is my first year at Princeton, and the first round of postseason play for my Fall sports. And after both the men’s and women’s cross country teams won their Ivy Championships at home, I was lucky enough to travel with men’s soccer to its appearance in the Ivy League tournament this weekend.

If you’ve been following the team’s season at all (you should already be following @princetonmsoc), you’d know that this season has been an exciting one for the Tigers — full of grit, exceeding expectations, lots of wins and lots of joy. 

 

Beginning our trip to the tournament was no different. The week prior, we lost to No. 12 Penn at home 1-0, closing out our regular season. The team really felt the loss, and with it, Princeton became the No. 3 seed in the tournament while Penn won the Ivy championship and the ability to host the Ivy tournament.

Despite that lingering fresh in their minds, and mine, I couldn’t help but pick up on a different energy heading to Philadelphia. That was confirmed when I walked into room 1120 and saw the sign that read: optimism. 

 

If you’re someone like me, hope can sometimes feel presumptuous, especially when it comes to sports.

 

If you ever see me knocking on a table three times or worrying about what color my nails are painted or what I was wearing at the last win, or any of the things I get superstitious about when it comes to my teams, it’s because I’m just afraid to jinx it. And hope is something I usually consider to be a jinx. 

 

This time, however, I didn’t feel that way. From talking to the players at breakfast or joking with the coaches, everyone was happy to be there, together, playing the sport they love with people they love. The Tigers have trust in themselves, and it inspires belief and trust in them from others. I have been privileged enough to get a front row seat to that this season. 

 

Going into Friday’s semifinal against No. 16 Cornell (the No. 2 seed in the tournament), I had a cautiously good feeling. Shockingly, that didn’t go away when Cornell was the first to score in the game, despite how it probably looked as I was pacing in the press box.

 

I still wasn’t rattled when they added another, putting the Tigers down 2-0. A 3-2 Princeton win is what it’ll have to be, I thought. And that’s exactly what happened.

Not once did it feel like we were out of that game, and time seemed to slow down. The team adapted, and made two goals happen in regulation time, with Nico Nee scoring an incredible equalizer with just seven minutes left in the match (if you haven’t seen the clip, it was a perfectly timed volley, and you should definitely check it out). 

 

Going into overtime, I felt more confident than I had the whole game — so much so that I moved from my usual spot in the press box down to the bench so that when we scored, I could run out with the team and document the celebration. 

 

I was filled with adrenaline, eyebrows contorted together in concern and hands clasped together in worry as my eyes were locked on the field. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were going to get it done. The Tigers were inches away from a huge win and a spot in the championship game, and there was no way anyone was going to take that from them — you could just tell. 

 

Minutes later, I watched the game-winner from Daniel Ittycheria roll into the net, and before I could register what happened, the team and I were off. 

 

I was beaming from ear to ear, but that was nothing compared to the joy the athletes were feeling —  screaming and hugging each other; I think the phrase “let’s go” must have been yelled in record-breaking numbers (with my contributing at least a few). 

 

I was overwhelmed with the excitement and pride I had for the guys after seeing how hard they worked, in that insane 3-2 comeback win and throughout the whole season.

I was recording everything on my phone, but I was mentally documenting everything too. It was a moment I know I will cherish for a long, long time.

 

Saturday was a mix of feeling the joy from winning the night before and shifting focus to the task ahead: a rematch with Penn, this time on the Quakers’ home field, and for an Ivy tournament championship and automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

 

We ate, like, a lot of food. We went to the field for a kickaround. The team rested; I caught up on work. Before we knew it, Championship Sunday was here.

And despite the daunting task ahead, combined with the fact that they had been through a tough, physical game less than 48 hours before, the energy in the team room was overwhelmingly positive. We were excited. Aware of the pressure, yes, but confident. 

 

As got to the field, the team knew its mission for the day. They all were ready to do it their way: with joy, and together. Princeton would go on to win the tournament, doing so with a dominant 3-1 victory.

 

This happened just one week after losing to the same team in Princeton (not to mention that Penn hadn’t lost at home since November 6, 2021, which was incidentally a 1-0 loss to Princeton during the Tigers’ undefeated Ivy campaign that year).

It was a moment well-deserved, but not at all taken for granted. The joy was palpable. And I finally exhaled — that cautious optimism I had was realized; the Princeton Tigers were the winners of the 2024 Ivy League tournament. 

 

The moment the team had been working towards all season finally came. And I was, and still am, as I write this, just absolutely thrilled for them. 

 

The work isn’t done now though. We now look to the NCAAs where Princeton will travel to Ohio to face the Akron Zips on Thursday. 

But with an exciting tournament under their belt, and an SID who will still get extremely nervous before the game, the Princeton Tigers will be ready for the next challenge. And it’s because they have the fight, the determination and the belief necessary. 

It also helps that they’re really good at soccer while being really cool people too. I’m not just saying this as someone who works with them; you really just can’t help but root for these Tigers. 

 

In such big moments, I always try to remember that it’s the joy we feel, and the nerves and stress and love of the sport regardless of any outcome, that makes this time of year so special. 

 

The hope creates the standout memories, the ones that keep us coming back to the teams after every game, win or lose.

But boy is it fun when we win.

So later this week when I’m a ball of nerves all over again for our NCAA first round game (looking at you, my OAC colleagues), just know I’m loving every second of it. And I can’t wait to see what’s next for my team.

And just to add one more to the books: LET’S GO TIGERS!!!!!!

 

What An Autumn

TigerBlog spent the weekend in Philadelphia, though it felt more like he was, hmm, in Ohio or Maine or North Carolina or something like that. 

It certainly had the feel of being somewhere much further from home that in it was. Also, how many nights do you have to stay in a hotel before you innately know which way to go to the elevator after you walk out of your room?

The occasion was the NCAA field hockey first and second rounds. By the time the weekend ended, Princeton had beaten Boston College 1-0 and lost to St. Joe's 1-0. The finality of losing a game like that, with a spot in the Final Four on the line, can be really hard to handle in the moment. 

It's only over time that you realize that you actually had a great season, one that included an Ivy League championship and return to the NCAA tournament after a year away from each. There is also the fact that the field hockey team was part of what has been just an incredible fall for Princeton Athletics. 

Consider all of this:

* field hockey Ivy title, host of Ivy tournament, NCAA quarterfinals
* women's soccer Ivy title, host of Ivy tournament, Ivy tournament champ, NCAA tournament
* men's cross country Ivy League Heps champion, NCAA regional runner-up, NCAA team qualifier
* women's cross country Ivy League Heps champion

Would that have been enough? Sure. Ah, but wait, there's more.

There's the men's water polo team, which is ranked sixth in the country and will host the conference tournament at DeNunzio Pool this coming weekend.

And then there are the two teams who had the biggest weekends.

TB starts with the women's volleyball team. It was Saturday night, after dinner in Manayunk, that TB got back to Room 415 and put on ESPN+ to see, of all things, Yale-Cornell women's volleyball. 

Why? Because Princeton had won its match earlier at Harvard, running its Ivy record to 12-2. Yale went into the match against Cornell at 12-1, so obviously the Tigers needed a Big Red win to get a share of the championship. 

It wasn't looking good when Yale won the first two sets. In fact, TB turned it off — and then had his former colleague Craig Sachson text him to let him know that Cornell had come all the way back to win. 

And so women's volleyball became Princeton's fifth Ivy League champion this fall. And, by virtue of the tiebreakers, the Ivy League tournament will be coming to Dillon Gym this weekend. 

Princeton will be the No. 1 seed and will play No. 4 Brown at 4 Friday, followed by a Yale (second seed) and Cornell (third seed) rematch at 7. The winners will meet Saturday at 6, with the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament as the big prize.

Meanwhile, there was the other ESPN+ game TB was watching Saturday night. That was the men's soccer team's Ivy tournament semifinal game against Cornell — which turned out to be one of the best games you'll see a Princeton team play.

Princeton went 5-2 in the league this year to finish tied with the Big Red for second in the league. The two losses were to Cornell and Penn, and after Penn (the host) took down Brown in overtime in the first semifinal, Princeton's task to win the tournament was to avenge both of those losses.

So how did it start? 

Well, Cornell scored 15 minutes into the game. And then again three minutes later. Suddenly it was 2-0 Big Red, and the Tigers' season was slipping away. Or was it? 

Princeton scored four minutes later, on a goal from Daniel Ittycheria. Cornell 2, Princeton 1 at the half. And Cornell 2, Princeton 1 deep into the second half. 

Ah, but the Tigers hadn't run out of fight. First Nico Nee volleyed in a Jack Jasinski feed perfectly into the goal, tying it with eight minutes to go. 

NICO NEE STRIKES AND WE ARE TIED HERE AT RHODES WITH 7 TO GO!!!

COME ON TIGERS!!#PrincetonSoccer #WhosNext pic.twitter.com/FAITNroj0x

— Princeton Men’s Soccer (@PrincetonMSoc) November 16, 2024

Now it was on to overtime. Princeton still needed a win to keep its season going. And a win the Tigers would get, this time Ittycheria again. As TB said before, it was one of the best games you could hope to see if you're a fan of Princeton sports. 

Would Princeton be in the NCAA tournament without a win over Penn yesterday in the final? Well, nobody will ever know. Nee started the scoring in the first half, and the Tigers added two more before Penn put one in making the final 3-1. 

You can add another Ivy tournament championship to the great fall. 

Now the men's soccer team will find out today at 1 its NCAA destination and opponent.