Softball Celebration

There are times when TigerBlog wishes he could go back to his high school self and tell that guy where technology would be in the future. 

This past Saturday at 7 was one of those times. 

This is how the conversation would have gone:

Current TB: "So there was an NCAA men's lacrosse tournament Zoom, overtime of the Cornell-Hopkins game on ESPNU on YouTube.TV and the Ivy League softball tournament streaming on ESPN+. Had the meeting and the softball game on the laptop and Cornell-Hop on the smart TV. Was also getting texts on the smartphone. Had to pay attention to the meeting for the game while Cornell-Hop went into OT. Wanted to blog about softball for Monday, so wanted to focus on that too."
HS TB: "What in the world are you talking about?" 

That pretty much sums it all up. 

You'll be happy to know that TB was able to follow all three. Meeting went smoothly. Hopkins won in overtime. 

And softball? It was a dominant performance by the Tigers all weekend, finishing it off Saturday night with an 8-0 win over Columbia to take the championship. Princeton went 3-0 at Cynthia Paul Field in the event. 

Had any team other than Princeton come out of the softball tournament with the win and gotten the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid, then that would have been a big shame, after the way Princeton dominated the 21-game regular season. The Tigers tied the Ivy record for league softball wins with 18 and won the league by six games. 

In fact, TB didn't even notice this until he went back to see the standings, but there was a bigger gap between Princeton and second place than there was between second place and last place. He wishes he could go back — easily — and look up how many times that's ever happened in the league in any sport. 

Princeton started the tournament by falling behind 4-0 to Brown after two innings of the first game. From that point forward, Princeton outscored its opponents by a combined 21-2. 

The Tigers came back to take down Brown 7-5 and followed that with a 6-0 win over Columbia. Brown eliminated Harvard, who lost to Columbia in the first round, and then was itself eliminated by Columbia.

That set up the final day of the tournament. Princeton needed one win. Columbia needed a win to force a deciding game. 

It was scoreless into the fourth before Princeton put up five and then closed it out with three more in the fifth. It ended once the eighth run crossed the plate.  

Of course, Cassidy Shaw didn't need eight runs to win the game. The Tiger pitcher went five innings in all three days, striking out 17 and walking only one. Is that good? Seems it. Unsurprisingly, Shaw was the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. 

The win set up quite the Tiger celebration. Shelley Szwast came away with some great shots, including: 

 Those are happy Tigers. 

And why not? This has been one of the greatest seasons in program history, and now the five-time defending Ivy champs head to the NCAA tournament for the 13th time. 

All that was left after the celebration was the selection, which was announced last night at 7. Princeton will be heading to Stillwater and the campus of Oklahoma State, where the Tigers will open the regional with a game against Stanford Friday at 2 Eastern. The host Oklahoma State team will then play Eastern Illinois on the first day of the three-day, double elimination event. 

OK State is 15th in the Division I RPI, one spot ahead of Stanford. Eastern Illinois is 124. Princeton is 83rd. 

Not that any of that matters. Princeton has had a huge season and a just had a huge weekend. 

The plane ride to Oklahoma is the reward — and an opportunity to keep it rolling.  

 

NCAA Lax Trivia

The NCAA lacrosse tournaments begin this weekend for the two Princeton teams. 

The women will be at Maryland to take on Rutgers at 2 this afternoon, with the winner to take on the host Terps Sunday at noon. The men will be home Sunday at 2:30 to take on Marist, who defeated Stony Brook 10-6 Wednesday night in the play-in game. 

With these games about to start, who's ready for some Princeton Lacrosse NCAA tournament trivia? You are, right? 

Question No. 1 - Princeton has won six NCAA men's championships and three NCAA women's championships, for a total of nine. How many NCAA championships have the other seven Ivy schools combined to win, with the men and women added together?  

Question No. 2 - Of Princeton's nine combined NCAA championships, five have come in overtime. What five Tigers have championship game OT goals?  

Question No. 3 - Princeton had two players named to the men's NCAA tournament 25th anniversary team in 1995. Who were the two players?  

Question No. 4 - Who holds the Princeton record for career NCAA tournament goals (men or women)?  

Question No. 5 - Chad Palumbo tied the Princeton single-game record for goals in an NCAA game by a Princeton men's player with six in last year's quarterfinals against Syracuse. Whose record did he tie? There were three of them.

Question No. 6 - Both the Princeton men's and women's teams have won better than 60 percent of their all-time NCAA games. Only one other school has done the same. Name the school. 

Question No. 7 - Chris Massey, Jesse Hubbard and Jon Hess played in 11 total NCAA tournament games, with a record of 10-1 and three championships. How many points did those three combine for in those 11 NCAA games? 

Question No. 8 - The game today will be the second postseason tournament game between Princeton and Rutgers. When was the other? 

Question No. 9 - Princeton men and women have played a combined 39 NCAA tournament games on the Princeton campus. What is Princeton's record in those games?  

Question No. 10 - The two Princeton teams have played 18 overtime NCAA games between them. What is their record in those games?  

To put a little space between the questions and answers, here's another dog picture, this one with his own Princeton Lacrosse hat:

Answer No. 1 - 6 (five men, one women)

Answer No. 2 - Andy Moe (1992), Kevin Lowe (1994), Jesse Hubbard (1996), B.J. Prager (2001), Theresa Sherry (2003) 

Answer No. 3 - Scott Bacigalupo and David Morrow — both of whom have children on the current teams (Maggie Bacigalupo and Kevin Morrow)

Answer No. 4 - Lauren Simone, who scored 37 before graduating in 2003. At the time, Simone was tied with Maryland's Jen Adams (now the head coach at Loyola) for the NCAA career record. To give you an idea of how much the game has changed, those two are now tied for 14th. Also, like Bacigalupo and Morrow, Simone (now Lauren Farrell) also has a child who plays lacrosse at Princeton — freshman Grace Farrell. 

Answer No. 5 - Jesse Hubbbard, Chris Massey (twice) and Coulter Mackesy

Answer No. 6 - Maryland

Answer No. 7 - 127. Yes, one-hundred-twenty-seven points, in 11 games. 

Answer No. 8 - Rutgers defeated Princeton 12-10 in the 1979 AIAW consolation round. The AIAW was the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, which was the forerunner for the NCAA tournament for women, which began in 1982 for women's lacrosse. 

Answer No. 9 - Princeton's combined record is 33-6 in NCAA home games. 

Answer No. 10 - In 18 games, Princeton is 10-8. 

How did you do? 

And remember: Princeton-Rutgers women today at 2, winner to play Maryland Sunday at noon. Princeton-Marist men Sunday at 2:30. 

Another Yeah/No

Remember when TigerBlog did this the first time? 

You don't? It was only two months ago. 

Well, even if you don't, here it is again:

YEAH 
Who is that in the picture? That's Jamison Moore of the men's lacrosse team. J-Mo, as he's know, got an A+ on his senior thesis, entitled: "Policy Visibility in a Polarized Age: Government Stimulus and Electoral Accountability in the United States.” How rare is it to get an A+? Apparently very. Apparently it takes multiple graders and then outside approval and confirmation. Anyway, congrats to J-Mo. That's really impressive stuff. 

YEAH
The Ivy League softball tournament starts today at noon at Cynthia Paul Field, where top-seeded Princeton will take on fourth-seed Brown, followed by second-seed Harvard and third-seed Columbia. It's a three-day double-elimination event that will have either six or seven total games. The winner gets the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. 

NO
There is some rain in the forecast for the next few days but nothing that should prevent the tournament from being played. There was enough rain yesterday to force the teams into the Jadwin Gym E-level "pit" for practices. TigerBlog saw a Brown assistant coach who was seemingly lost on C-level and was able to direct her to where she needed to be. It's easy to forget that Jadwin has six levels and is an easy place to get lost. 

NO
TigerBlog made a mistake earlier this week when he said the softball team finished 19-2 in the league to set a record for most wins. Instead, Princeton was actually 18-3, tying its own record — and still very impressive. 

YEAH
How many players are on the field at any one time in softball? That would be nine. How many are in the batting order? Also nine. How many All-Ivy League softball players did Princeton have? Once again, nine. The full recap of those honorees is HERE.

YEAH
The Princeton women's lacrosse team will be making its 31st NCAA tournament appearance when it takes on Rutgers tomorrow at 2 in College Park, Md. The winner of that game gets Maryland, the third overall seed, Sunday at noon. 

YEAH
Princeton women's lacrosse has been to 11 Final Fours and seven NCAA finals, winning three of them. Princeton is 42-27 all-time in NCAA games. 

YEAH
Princeton defeated Rutgers 15-9 in Princeton on Feb. 25. Rutgers is 10-8 on the year, with an RPI of 20. Princeton's RPI is 18. 

NO
TB went back to see the Princeton-Rutgers women's lacrosse year-by-year results, he was surprised to see that they've only played 21 times? How is that possible? Well, it starts with the fact that they first played in 1977 and played each of the next five years but then not again until 1999. Why? No idea. Then they didn't play from 2014 through 2023. Again, no idea. Princeton leads the series 16-4-1. This is the first time the teams will have played at a neutral site. 

YEAH
One last thing from the Ivy tournament sweeps for Princeton. The five all-tournament selections for the women were Maggie Molnar, Haven Dora, Jami MacDonald, Dylan Allen and Ella Sloan. The five men were Nate Kabiri, Chad Palumbo, Tucker Wade, Finn Fox and Ryan Croddick. Molnar and Kabiri were the Most Outstanding Player winners. 

YEAH
The top-seeded Princeton men finally know their first-round opponent. It'll be Marist, who defeated Stony Brook 10-6 last night in one of the two play-in games. It'll be Tigers-Red Foxes Sunday at 2:30 on Sherrerd Field. 
 
NO
Princeton is the No. 1 seed for the third time, despite having won six NCAA titles. The No. 1 seed on the men's side has won only six times in the last 18 tournaments. 

YEAH
Nate Kabiri is one of five men's finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, the highest individual honor in college lacrosse.  Kabiri is Princeton's sixth finalist, along with Coulter Mackesy last year, Michael Sowers in 2019, Tom Schreiber in 2013 and 2014, Ryan Boyle in 2004 and Trevor Tierney in 2001. 

YEAH
Princeton has the second-longest streak of NCAA appearances in Division I with five, trailing only Georgetown's eight.   

YEAH
Princeton sophomore Porter Malkiel has 11 goals on 17 shots, for a .657 shooting percentage. That is the highest shooting percentage any Princeton player with double figures in goals in a season has ever had. 

Welcome, Karameli Fa’ae’e

Karameli Fa'ae'e Named Women's Rugby Head Coach

It dawns on TigerBlog that through the years he's written about a lot of athletes, coaches, alums — and dogs. 

TB loves dogs, ever since he grew up with a toy poodle named "Louie," who was named after the French Revolutionary king.  

And dogs seem to love him. Maybe that's why he takes so many pictures of dogs and has, as such, written about them. 

He's written about dogs on surfboards, dogs on skateboards, dogs who run obstacle courses, dogs who appeared to be driving cars, dogs who were wearing various amounts of Princeton gear; you know, pretty much anything dog-related. 

Take Watson, for instance. 

A Princeton Bulldog. Specifically, the bulldog of former women's lacrosse player Shea Smith and her family. This picture notwithstanding, Watson was the life of the party at pretty much every team tailgate. 

Who else? Remember Fred? TB wrote about him in June of 2014, when he saw him parked outside of a Baltimore ice cream store in a sidecar of a motorcycle. Who was inside the store? A former Princeton swimmer named Stephanie Wright and her family. 

TB didn't know them, though the fact that he was wearing his standard Princeton gear got them to ask about his connection. 

Anyway, here was the photo of Fred (no relation to the Wright family):

Then there was Nutmeg. 

TigerBlog ran into him in the lobby of the Marriott Newton before the 2024 Princeton-Harvard field hockey game. Nutmeg is another good-looking doggo:

How's that for a face? 

It took more than 18 months, but Nutmeg's family reached out yesterday. Yes. Here's what his owner had to say: 

Holy cow!I know I’m a year & a half late to this but very glad Nutmeg brought Princeton great luck in your field hockey game vs Harvard!!
Go Tigers!
Our Nutmeg does love to suck up the attention and rub downs!
He was in town to cheer on our daughter rowing for One Arlington Rowing (club team of Yorktown High School, Arlington, Va) in the Head of the Charles.  

How about that? It's nice to know Nutmeg is doing well. Thanks for reaching out. And his owner is correct. As TB recalls, Nutmeg was an attention, well, hound.  

TigerBlog could go on all day about dogs, except for the news yesterday that Princeton has hired its new women's rugby coach. Her name is Karameli Fa’ae’e, and she's coming to Princeton after being an assistant coach at Brown. 

She's also an assistant coach in the United States national team program, with the U-23 team. Here is a quote from the release announcing her hire that really stood out to TigerBlog:

“I want to acknowledge God, my family and the community who have supported and shaped me into the leader I am today. I am deeply honored to accept the opportunity to serve as Head Coach of the Women's Rugby program at Princeton University. I look forward to building an athletic environment that reflects the same standard of excellence found in its academic mission.  My commitment is to cultivate excellence in performance, integrity in action, and a shared dedication to something greater than ourselves.” 

The women's rugby program at Princeton is still essentially in its infancy. How do you build a winning program? You start by building a winning culture. That seems to be something that Fa’ae’e understands perfectly. 

She certainly has a strong background in the sport. She was a U.S. national team captain as a player, after she played for Samoa and New Zealand. She's been a coach on the collegiate, professional, national and international levels. 

And now she comes to Princeton. If you read the release that TB linked up top, you probably came away thinking the same thing TB did: She looks like she has a lot of energy. 

Maybe it's a rugby thing, but Fa'ae'a certainly gives off a vibe in her photos of enthusiasm, excitement and forcefulness (she can also hold three rugby balls and her phone at the same time). Those are all qualities that will serve her well as she builds her program 

Welcome to Princeton, Karameli Fa'ae'e. 

What's Left?

Guess what's a little more than four months away? 

That's right. Princeton football season. 

The 2026 schedule was released yesterday, and opening kickoff is Sept 19, in Rhode Island, against Bryant. The home opener is a week later against Albany. The other non-league game is at Wagner. 

If you've never been to a game at Wagner, there is an amazing view across the field to the nearby Verrazzano Bridge. 

TigerBlog is pretty sure he'll have more on Princeton Football as the season gets closer. Still, four months doesn't really seem like that long — though there is that little thing called "summer" between now and then. 

What's left of the 2025-26 athletic year at Princeton? While there might not be much left on the schedule, what there is will be very significant. 

As you probably know, Princeton won both Ivy League lacrosse tournaments this past weekend. If you were wondering, that's only happened once before, in 2014, when Penn won both. 

TB knows this because his colleague Chas Dorman, who used to work at Penn, said that he was the lone constant between those two sweeps. TB will give Chas his due on this one. 

Not that this should shock anyone, but TB will have more lacrosse as the week goes along. For now, there's just a reminder that about the the NCAA draw for both teams: the women are at Maryland against Rutgers Friday at 2, while the men (the No. 1 overall seed) will host the winner of Wednesday's play-in game between Marist and Stony Brook in the first round Sunday at 2:30. 

This week will bring the Ivy League softball tournament to Princeton, who went 19-2 during the regular season to set a record for most regular-season league wins. The event is scheduled now to begin Thursday at Cynthia Paul Field, and hopefully the weather cooperates.  

How did Princeton put together its record-setting season? Well, it helps that the Tigers lead the league in team batting, pitching and fielding.  

Princeton, the top seed, will play fourth-seeded Brown in the first game of the double-elimination tournament at noon, followed by second-seeded Harvard and third-seeded Columbia. There will be three games Friday and then one or two Saturday, with the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament for the winner. 

Princeton has won five straight Ivy League softball championships and hosted the league's postseason each of those five years. 

What else is left beyond lacrosse and softball? There is track and field, rowing and NCAA golf. 

There are five Ivy League championships still to be crowned in this calendar year, two in track and field and three in rowing. 

The Ivy League Heptagonal Championships will be held at Weaver Track and Field Stadium next weekend, as both the men and women look to wrap up another Triple Crown. Princeton has tuned up for Heps with the Penn Relays and Larry Ellis Invitational the last two weekends and will be off this weekend. 

TigerBlog's contribution to Heps will be an upcoming feature story on women's soccer player/steeplechaser Pia Beaulieu, which will be on the website at some point next week.

As for rowing, the women's lightweights won yet another Eastern Sprints title, taking both the first varsity 8 race and the overall points championship. Up next is a trip to California at the end of the month for the IRA national championships. 

The three Ivy titles on the table in rowing will also be next weekend, with the Eastern Sprints for the men and the Ivy League championships for the open women. The men's event will be on Lake Quigsingamond in Worcester, Mass.; the women will be on the Cooper River in South Jersey. 

Looking beyond, there will be the NCAA women's rowing championships, the NCAA track and field regionals and the IRAs for men as well, all at the end of the month. There will be the NCAA track and field finals in early June. 

And that'll be it. 

An athletic year at Princeton has somewhere around 700 events. When you get to this point, almost all of those are behind you.

As TB said, though, the ones that are left? They'll all be huge.  

Twin Championships

With all of the goals and all of the stats and everything else that happened this weekend in the two Ivy League lacrosse tournaments, here's are two numbers  that pretty much sum it all up for Princeton: 15 and 26. 

What do those numbers represent? They are combined totals of goals and shots between the Princeton women and men in the quarters that decided the two championship games yesterday. 

Both of those games, by the way, ended with Princeton wins. Both of those wins avenged regular season defeats. 

The women defeated Yale 12-8 after trailing 8-6 heading into the fourth. Princeton then scored six goals on 11 shots while not allowing a Bulldog goal to roll to the championship, its seventh all-time, the most by any Ivy League women's team. 

The men never trailed in a 19-9 win over defending NCAA champion Cornell, but that game was 7-5 entering the third quarter. Princeton then scored nine straight goals, on 15 shots, in the first 14 minutes of the third quarter, blowing the game wide open at 16-5. 

Added together, and that's 15 goals on 26 shots in those two deciding quarters. That's a percentage of .577. That's crazy. 

Also, that's two Ivy League tournament championships. Both of those were won on their opponents' home field.  

There are a few other similarities between the women and men. Both fell behind by four in the first half of their semifinal games. Both then had 7-0 runs to take control. 

When the two Princeton teams relaxed outside Caldwell Field House Thursday waiting for their buses to head to their destinations, the men knew that they were definitely headed to the NCAA tournament and the women knew they probably were. Possibly. Probably. Maybe. You know what's better? Definitely. 

That's what winning the tournament did for Princeton. It locked in an automatic NCAA tournament spot, which made the drive back from New Haven for the Selection Show much less stressful. 

To win its tournament, the Princeton women needed to beat two teams it had lost to during the regular season, starting Friday night in the semifinal against Penn, to whom the Tigers had lost 10-9 in two overtimes April 8. The Quakers jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead. Princeton came back to tie it. 

Penn then went up 5-4. Princeton then scored seven straight. Final score: Princeton 15, Penn 10.

For the men, Yale went up 6-2 in Friday's semifinal at rainy Schoellkopf Field. What did Princeton do? Rip off seven straight of its own, going up 9-6 and winning 12-10. 

That set up yesterday's two finals. 

The women started at noon against a Bulldog team it had lost to 16-8 on March 28. This time it was 4-4 at the half and 8-6 Yale on a goal with two seconds left in the third. The fourth? All Tigers. 

Princeton's six fourth-quarter goals came from five different players, with two from Maggie Molnar. Jami MacDonald had a goal and two assists during that run, and Meg Morrisroe had two assists.

MacDonald finished the tournament with five goals and six assists. Haven Dora had a team Ivy tournament record of seven assists Friday night and finished with 3G, 8A for the two games. 

The men started at 1. By 1:05 the Tigers had a lead they'd never give back against a Big Red team to whom it had lost seven straight, including 13-11 back on March 21. Princeton has not lost since — and it wasn't about to in the ILT final, which turned out to be the Tigers' third title in four years. 

The third quarter was insane. Princeton had a 7-5 lead at the break first had to survive a seven-shot barrage by Cornell in the first 3:51 of the third quarter, which the Tiger D did masterfully. When the Tigers finally got a possession, they were still up by two. Then three. Then four. Then 11. 

Which was the best goal? That's up to you to decide. Andrew McMeekin's behind-the-back score and Jackson Green's "dare me to shoot it? Okay I'll rip a corner" blast were probably the two nicest. 

And then it was the celebration, the photos, the banner, the t-shirts — and then a race to get back to Princeton in time for the selections, which for the women meant 9 and the men 9:30.  

All that was left was to see the NCAA matchups. The men earned the No. 1 overall seed and will be at home Sunday at 2:30 against the winner of the play-in game between Stony Brook and Marist. The women will be on the road, against Rutgers at Maryland. 

There aren't too many teams who are still playing lacrosse now. It was good to see the name "Princeton" come up twice last night on the draw. 

It was even better not to have to sweat out whether it would.  

Welcome To Postseason

Welcome to May. 

Welcome to postseason. 

It starts at 11 this morning, at least Eastern time, when the men's tennis team plays SMU at the University of Texas in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The host Longhorns will play Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the second match, and the winners play Saturday in the second round. 

Princeton and SMU are a combined 37-21 on the season. Of those 21 losses between them, eighteen have come to NCAA tournament teams. 

Princeton is looking to get to the NCAA second round for the second year in a row, after beating St. John's last year in Round 1 before falling to Virginia.

The match is likely to be moved indoors due to rain in the forecast. You can follow the live stats HERE.

There is rain in the forecast for Ithaca as well, though there is no chance that the Ivy League tournament for men's lacrosse will be moving indoors. Funny thing about this forecast: There was no rain in it when TigerBlog was packing yesterday for the trip. There were cold temps, but no rain. 

And so TB packed lots of sweatshirts and layers, though sadly no rain stuff. Maybe he should have simply assumed that the first weekend in May in Ithaca always requires being prepared for rain and cold, not just one or the other. 

Hey, he's seen snow there for the Ivy lacrosse tournament. On Mothers' Day.  

Rain or no rain, cold or no cold, it'll be Cornell and Harvard at 4 and then Princeton and Yale at 6:30. The winners meet Sunday at 1 for the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

No matter what, Princeton and Cornell have already shared the 2026 Ivy championship. Also, both of those teams — and quite likely Harvard — are headed to the NCAA field when the bids are announced Sunday night. 

All of those games can be seen on ESPNU. 

Meanwhile, the forecast in New Haven is for clear skies and reasonably warm temps. The Princeton women will be there for their Ivy League tournament, which also begins today. 

Game 1 will be between Yale and Brown, with the opening draw at 4. Princeton and Penn will then play at 7, with the winners to meet Sunday at noon for the automatic bid. Princeton and Penn played a great game the first time around, one that the Quakers won 10-9 in two overtimes. 

The rematch will have huge NCAA implications, since the winner gets two prizes: a shot at the automatic bid and the chance to boost an at-large resume.  

The postseason will be intense. The day before? That wasn't as intense, at least not while the two lacrosse teams waited outside Caldwell Field House for their departures. That was more of a party atmosphere. 

The women, all in matching sweatsuits, sat between the field house and DeNunzio Pool, waiting for their food orders to arrive. TigerBlog congratulated Jami MacDonald on being the Ivy League Attacker of the Year. 

The men's players, as they waited for their bus, played Hacky Sack. Even photographer Camryn Ley joined in, after looking like a kid at the playground who was hoping to get the attention of the big kids. 

TB also showed the Ivy League Defenseman of the Year graphic to Jack Stahl, who was unanimously voted for the honor after a year that saw him also named the Division I Breakout Player of the Year in midseason by Inside Lacrosse. 

Stahl stands 6-4 and says very little. He's Teddy Roosevelt's kind of player — talks softly and carries a big stick. That quote, by the way, is literally etched in stone at Class of 1952 Stadium. 

TB wasn't expecting a huge reaction when Stahl saw the news, and, in keeping with his persona, there wasn't one, just a bit of a smile. TB could tell Stahl was happy, obviously.

Princeton had six first-team All-Ivy men's lacrosse player, tied for the second-most in program history. Only the 1997 team, with seven, had more — and that team went 15-0.  

It was a day to be happy. It was still April, after all. Then the buses left, eventually arriving at their destinations. And then April turned to May. 

And now it's time for postseason. 

Now it's time to get serious.  

Goodbye, April

Goodbye, April. 

You have to love the month. It has no idea what it's trying to do. 

According to AccuWeather, in Princeton this April you had five days where the high temperature was over 80 degrees, with four more with a high between 77 and 79. That's eight of 30 days where it was at least 77.

Ah, but then there's the flip side. There were 11 days where the low was below 40, six of which where it was below freezing. 

The truly fun part is that five of the sub-40 days came after the five 80-plus days. 

Don't ever change, April.

*

The Ivy League baseball regular season comes to an end this weekend. There are three teams who are locked into the tournament — Penn, Brown and Yale, any of whom could still be the host. 

There are also four teams in a race for the fourth and final spot — Princeton, Columbia, Cornell and Dartmouth. 

Princeton ends its season with three home games against the Crimson, who have already been eliminated from the ILT. The enter the weekend in fifth place, at 8-10 in the league, one game up on Dartmouth and Cornell. 

Then there is Columbia. The Lions had a postponed game against Brown from earlier in the season that was made up yesterday, when Brown did Princeton a big favor with a win that dropped the Lions to 8-9-1. That "-1" is a tie game with Yale that won't be finished, so winning percentage will be the ultimate decider of the last spot.  

Working in Princeton's favor is the fact that it holds the tiebreaker over Dartmouth and Cornell after having won the season series against each. The Tigers also have the tiebreaker over Columbia, but unless Princeton somehow ends up with a tie then that won't matter. 

The other three matchups this weekend have Columbia at Cornell, Dartmouth at Yale and Brown at Penn. 

First pitch for Saturday's doubleheader at Clarke Field is 11:30 and for Sunday's single game is noon.  

*

The Larry Ellis Invitational Meet will be held at Weaver Track & Field Stadium this weekend, beginning tomorrow and running through Sunday. 

As was the case with the Sam Howell Invitational a few weeks ago, TigerBlog would like to remind everyone who Larry Ellis was. 

Does the name Bob Beamon mean anything to you? Beaman was the one who soared 29-2 1/4 in the long jump at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, shattering the existing record by nearly two feet. For more than two decades, nobody came close to touching the record, and it was among those considered unbreakable — until it was broken in 1991, when Mike Powell leapt 29-4 1/4. Now, 38 years later, Beamon's jump is still second. 

Why bring up Beaman? He grew up in New York City, Jamaica, to be exact. It was there that he was first mentored by the then-Jamaica High School coach. His name? Larry Ellis.

That's the same Larry Ellis who went on to become one of Princeton's most legendary coaches ever, with a 22-year run with the men's track and field program, as well multiple cycles as an Olympic coach. Also like Howell, Ellis was a true gentleman and a warm, welcoming person. 

He could also cut to the chase, at least in one example that TB overheard. He was walking down the Jadwin Gym balcony one day when he saw Ellis and one of his athletes in a conversation against the railing:

Athlete: What do I have to do to get my time down?
Ellis: Run faster.  

TB will never forget that. 

Ellis passed away in 1998 at the age of 70.  

*

Among the rowing highlights this weekend will be a matchup Saturday between the third-ranked Princeton heavyweight men and No. 6 Brown on Lake Carnegie for the Content Cup, which honors Martha Content Joukoswky, Brown Class of 1958, and dates to 1994. 

The women's open rowing team welcomes Penn and Central Florida Saturday as well. The lightweight women have their Eastern Sprints Sunday in Worcester. 

*

The Princeton softball regular season ends this weekend with three games against Dartmouth at Cynthia Paul Field. The facility will be back in business next weekend, for the Ivy League tournament.

Princeton, 17-1 in the league, has already clinched the Ivy title and the host role for the ILT. Should Princeton get at least one win this weekend against the Big Green, it would tie the record for most wins ever in an Ivy softball season.

The rest of the field for the tournament isn't set yet, as three out of Columbia, Harvard, Brown and Penn will be in town next weekend. 

*

The complete weekend schedule is HERE. 

You Too, Nance?

You see this picture? 

TigerBlog has shown it a few people who know who's in it and they've all had one of two reactions: 1) there's a lot of goals in that picture or 2) did she end up passing him?

So yes, there are a lot of goals there. And yes, she did pass him. 

That would be the MacDonald family. TigerBlog was going to correct that it was the MacDonalds plus him, but then he thought better of that. 

And why not? He considers himself an honorary MacDonald, something he earned when he thumped them all in their family card game, Wizard. 

This is what TB wrote about it after he played with them the first time: 

TB had never heard of it until he sat down to play with the entire MacDonald family. The fact that he didn't know the rules notwithstanding, TB won — three times. And that was after he saw cards thrown, insults hurled, marital choices questioned (at least that's what Linda MacDonald said to her husband Steve) though it was all in good fun. They are a great group, the MacDonalds. 

This picture was taken this past Saturday, after the women's lacrosse team's Senior Day win over Dartmouth. It was Jami MacDonald's final Sherrerd Field appearance, after eight years of MacDonalds who dominated at the facility. Her brother Mikey was the 2015 Roper Trophy winner; he still has scored more points in a season at Princeton than any other men's lacrosse player not named Michael Sowers. 

Jami, who was named the Ivy League Attacker of the Year yesterday, brings 260 career points into Princeton's Ivy League tournament semifinal against Penn at Yale Saturday. Mikey? He finished his career with 208. Jami also has the edge in goals (158-132) and assists (102-76). 

It's going to be a long, long time before siblings will ever reach 468 points (and counting) between them. 

There's a different picture from Saturday that TB wants to talk about though. It's this one: 

This one is from halftime of the men's game, when, despite the rain, Princeton Athletics honored two longtime legends who will be retiring at the end of this academic year: Karen Malec and Nancy Donigan. 

TigerBlog wrote about Karen a few weeks ago, when she first announced that her 36-year career at Princeton was going to be coming to a close. You can read that HERE.

Today is Nancy's turn. TB could actually just do a "find" and "change" for "Karen" to "Nancy," because much of what applies to Karen applies to Nancy, who, by the way, have always been really close friends. 

When TB first came to Princeton, Nancy and her husband Joe had two little kids. You can see them all in the picture — with their next generation of little kids. Where did the time go? 

Nancy is retiring after 39 years at Princeton, most of which has been spent in the compliance office after starting out in the football office. She was a great athlete in her own right and is a member of the Notre Dame High School (in Lawrenceville) Hall of Fame.  

When TB thinks about what to write about Nancy, he comes back to two words: warmth, and smile. Nancy exudes the first and almost always has the second. 

TigerBlog has had his share of ups and downs during his time at Princeton. Through it all, Nancy has been a constant as a friend whose support, compassion, humor and kindness have helped sustain TB through those downs. 

Much like Karen, Nancy is just fun to be around. She laughs. She jokes. She lives each day devoted to her family and to those closest to her. Whatever she's doing, she maximizes the enjoyment for everyone in her orbit. 

On top of who she is, there's the job she's done. Pretty much every athlete who has come through Princeton during her time has no idea who she is. They have no way of knowing that if she didn't do her job the way she did, they would never have gotten a chance to compete as a Tiger. The coaches here certainly know how important she's been for their programs.  

When TB heard the news that Nancy was retiring, his first thought was "you too, Nance?" What will Princeton Athletics be without Nancy Donigan? Much like it will be without Karen Malec. 

Better for having had them here as long as they were — and yet never really the same again.  

Tigers To Texas

Junior Bridgeman? 

Did TigerBlog hear that name correctly? Did one of the Princeton men's tennis players actually say "Junior Bridgeman" in the time before the NCAA Selection Show yesterday afternoon? 

Yes. It was Top Nidunjianzan, the senior No. 2 singles player, who asked one of his teammates if he knew who Junior Bridgeman was.

Do you know the name? TigerBlog does. He just can't remember the last time he's heard it. 

Junior Bridgeman was a very, very good but not great NBA player in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly for the Milwaukee Bucks, with some time with the Clippers when they were still in San Diego. He averaged more than 13 points per game in both the regular season and playoffs and finished with 12,129 points overall.  

He was actually drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the 1975 draft (No. 8 overall) but was traded to the Bucks in one of the most consequential trades in NBA history — it was that trade that brought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the Lakers.

So why in the world did his name come up? 

According to Nidunjianzan, he had just seen something pop up on social media mentioning Bridgeman's ultra-successful post-basketball career, one that saw his amass a fortune of more than $1 billion before he passed away last year at the age of 71. 

And that was the Junior Bridgeman mention. 

The main event yesterday was the NCAA selections, something that Princeton seemed to be a lock for heading into the show, at least in the rankings that are used. This was mostly a question of where and who, rather than if. 

Princeton went 16-10 overall but 2-5 in the Ivy League, ending a five-match losing streak with wins over Yale and Brown to end the regular season. The Tigers had high hopes after winning the ECAC tournament (a gathering of the eight Ivy schools) in February, but injuries derailed that. 

Still, the team had really strong season prior to that, with wins over teams like North Carolina, Pepperdine and Buffalo, in addition to three NCAA-bound Ivy League schools. Of the 10 losses, eight came against NCAA teams. At one point, Princeton was ranked No. 19 by the ITA. 

The team gathered in the Cordish Family Lounge, overlooking the outdoor courts at the Meadows complex, for the 4 pm show. TigerBlog was impressed by the lack of tension, as every player was confident in what was going to happen. 

It just took a bit longer than anyone expected. For two reasons. 

First, there was the matter of the way the selections played out. The 64-team draw was released in 16 groups of four — of which 15 passed without any mention of Princeton. 

And still there was no panic. As each host site was revealed, there was a clamor about whether or not this would be a spot Princeton would want to go; there seemed to be some hope for San Diego. 

In the end, it would be Texas, in the last group of four announced. Princeton will be taking on SMU Friday at 11 am Eastern time, while Texas will play Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the other opening round matchup. The winners will play Saturday at 4 to see who advances to the Round of 16. 

SMU finished the regular season with a 19-10 overall record and an 8-5 record (tied for fifth) in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Mustangs are led by No. 1 singles player Trevor Svajda, the NCAA singles runner-up this past fall, when Princeton's No. 1 player Paul Inchauspe reached the semifinals. Princeton and SMU have played twice, most recently in 1995. 

For Princeton, it's now three straight NCAA tournaments and four of the last five. TB has written all season about how tough the Ivy League is, and the selections reflected that, as five league teams saw their names come up. 

If the players weren't worried about whether or not they were in, then TB definitely wasn't. Why is that? Well, it seems that the computer on which Princeton was watching the show was a bit behind. By the time the Tigers came up, TB had already gotten two text messages about the draw. 

As with any other sport, the selections for a team that knows it's heading into the tournament has a party atmosphere. Yesterday in the Cordish Lounge was no different. 

And just like every other time, the Tigers exploded out of their seats when they saw their name up there. 

Now it's off to Texas. It's the reward for a season that will always be remembered for what have been had the team been healthy — and a season that will be remembered for the national impact Princeton men's tennis continues to have.