Monday, April 27, 2015

Busy, Busy

TigerBlog posted his men's lacrosse story to goprincetontigers.com Saturday, after the Tigers fell to Cornell 15-10.

Then he got in his car and drove back from Ithaca, which takes around four hours.

When he got back, he checked his computer to see what was new on the website. And what did he find?

In the time it took him to drive back, goprincetontigers.com had had 10 new stories posted. This doesn't include box scores or stat updates or anything.

TigerBlog is talking about 10 new stories.

That's how it is on a spring Saturday. It gets pretty busy.

TigerBlog gets asked a bunch of times how Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications decides which stories to post at the front of the webpage each day. The answer is that everything is done chronologically.

Whichever story is done first, that's posted. Then the next one. And so on.

The result is that stories like TB's men's lacrosse game cycle through the front page and off relatively quickly. There's really nothing that can be done about that, though obviously the stories stay prominently displayed on the individual sports pages.

The OAC isn't going to make value judgements that one sport is more important than another, or one game trumps another. It's an assembly line of content that gets churned out, especially on the weekends.

This one was busy, that's for sure.

It featured some big wins and a few crushing losses, as well as more smiling softball players in game action shots on the webpage, something that will be among TB's lasting memories of the 2015 spring season at Princeton, along with the awful weather.

The men's lacrosse team lost a tough one against Cornell, who took control of the game with a perfect second quarter, one that started with the Tigers ahead 5-0 and ended with the Big Red up 9-5. Still, the teams will meet again Friday in the Ivy League tournament semifinals at Brown, so the Tigers have another shot at extending their season.

Each game the Tigers do play gives Kip Orban and Mike MacDonald another opportunity to continue their incredible senior years, with the assault that they continue to put on the program's record book. TigerBlog will have way more on that later this week.

The toughest loss of the weekend was the men's golf team's. Princeton led much of the way in the Ivy League tournament, only to fall by one stroke to Penn.

One stroke. One lousy stroke. How close was it? Penn had a four-man score of 885. Princeton? 886.

That's ridiculous. It's also the second time in three years that Princeton golf felt that sting, after the women lost by one back in 2013.

On the bright side for Princeton was sophomore Quinn Prchal, who tied the Ivy record with a final-round 67 to win the individual title by three strokes.

As for those who won big this weekend, there was the women's lacrosse team, which took care of Brown 14-8 to finish off a perfect 7-0 run in the Ivy League. The Tigers will host the women's tournament for the second straight year and will play Harvard in the semifinals; Penn and Cornell meet in the other semifinal.

Princeton has won 13 straight regular-season Ivy League games, since an opening day loss to Brown a year ago. This time Erin McMunn had five goals, Erin Slifer had three and sophomore Olivia Hompe reached the 100-point mark for her career - in just 34 games.

Princeton finished the regular season at 12-3, led by the same three who led the team against Brown. McMunn is Princeton's career leader in assists, while Slifer and Hompe are 1-2 on the team in points this season with 55 and 54.

The other team who won a championship this weekend was the women's water polo team, who defeated Indiana 7-6 in the College Water Polo Association championship game.

The incredible Ashleigh Johnson broke the school record for saves in a career with the 17 she made in the title game, giving her 1,003 for her career and making her the first Tiger to go past 1,000.

Princeton had lost seven straight times to Indiana, including twice this year by one goal each.

This time, in the championship game, Ashley Hatcher scored four goals, three of which came in the second half, after Princeton had trailed 4-3 at the break. She also put in two straight after the score was tied at 5-5, giving Princeton a 7-5 lead in the fourth quarter.

Indiana got one back to make it 7-6 but would not get the tying goal. The win, and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, belonged to Princeton.

And with that, a very long and very busy weekend came to a close.

If TigerBlog is correct, then the only remaining home events for 2014-15 are the women's lacrosse tournament and rowing and track and field.

TB will be back on the road this weekend, heading to Brown for the men's lacrosse tournament. It to would have been in Princeton had the Tigers defeated Cornell, but it wasn't meant to be.

Sometimes that happens. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you don't.

There were both ends of that spectrum for Princeton on this busy, busy spring weekend. 


1 comment:

CU77 said...

I was able to listen to some of your commentary on the Cornell game for WPRB; nice job! Solo sports announcing is a tough gig. Also, nice article on Orban and MacDonald, they will be a handful for Cornell in the rematch on Friday.