Mehr Eggs

When TigerBlog thinks of Easter, he thinks of pleasant 60-degree days, with bonnets and egg hunts and chocolate bunnies.

When he thinks of egg hunts gone by, he thinks of the ones he witnessed in person, the ones which usually involved serious competition, taunting, hurt feelings and maybe even a little blood every now and then. All in good fun, of course.

What little kids wouldn't do for a plastic egg with a Hershey's Kiss inside.

When TigerBlog Jr. was just learning to talk, he found himself in Easter egg hunts, often with his older and bigger cousins. He would sprint all over, gleefully picking up whatever eggs he could find, famously saying "mehr eggs" - his way of saying "more eggs" at the time - when there were none to be found.

TigerBlog once wrote this, back in 2012:
Other than the fact that it involves the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Easter is as close to a Jewish holiday as there is in the Christian calendar.
How so? It's not on the same day every year. It's not like Christmas, which is always Dec. 25. Or, more secularly, Thanksgiving, which is not always the same exact day but is always on the same Thursday.
Easter is like Hanukkah, which can be anywhere from late November to late December. Or the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper and always seem to come "early" or "late" but never right on time.

Of course, Easter is a holiday of great significance to Christians, and TB means no disrespect. He hopes all who celebrated had a great holiday with friends and family.

Around here, you certainly had great weather for it.

TigerBlog remembers some pretty cold Easter Sundays. Yesterday was not one of them. Yesterday was more summer than spring, with temperatures that were in the mid-80s.

Not that long ago, there used to be a season around here called "spring," but that seems to have vanished now, overwhelmed by winter on one end and summer on the other, both of which have nudged their way though most of what used to be spring's place on the calendar.

Now there can be snow on the ground on April 1 and 80-degree summer days on April 16, which is exactly what happened around here this month.

The Princeton softball team had a big weekend at Penn in the nice weather of this past weekend. The defending Ivy League champion won all four games against the Quakers and in the process took a big step towards repeating as South Division champ, though there is a long way to go.

Prior to this past weekend, the last time Princeton had swept a doubleheader at Penn was in 2006. The Tigers just did it twice in two days.

What Princeton showed it can do is win close games in its division, which is how you win championships. The Tigers won 4-2 and 3-2 Saturday and then came back to take Game 1 yesterday 4-2. Doing the math, that's 11 runs in the first three games - and then 12 more in the last game, a 12-8 Tiger win.

With the weekend's results, Princeton now finds itself at 10-2 in the league with four left against Columbia and four left against Cornell. The Tigers are now three up on Columbia, which means that even a split next weekend would leave Princeton three up on the Lions - and possibly Quakers - with four to go. Penn is now five back of the Tigers.

The softball team isn't the only Princeton women's team who had these few days in Philadelphia circled.

For the women's lacrosse team, Wednesday marks a huge trip to the Penn campus as well.

Princeton defeated Yale 17-9 Saturday behind five more goals from Olivia Hompe, the second all-time leading scorer in Princeton women's lacrosse history. Hompe now has 47 goals and 17 assists, and she is the leading scorer in the league.

The Ivy standings are fairly straightforward at this point.

There are two unbeatens - Cornell at 5-0 and Princeton at 4-0, and two one-loss teams (Penn at 3-1 and Harvard at 4-1). Columbia is in fifth at 2-3, which means that whatever other results occur, a Princeton win over Columbia in the final game of the regular season, then the top four now will be in the Ivy tournament.

Princeton would still like to host the Ivy tournament. There are all kinds of scenarios that exist to make that happen, as well as scenarios to make any of the other three the host.

Princeton has Cornell Saturday in Ithaca. Harvard still has Penn and Cornell. Obviously there are all kinds of scenarios left.

Should Princeton win the game Wednesday at Penn, then the winner of the game Saturday in Ithaca would be assured of at least a tie for the Ivy title. The winner of that game would also become the Ivy tournament host should Princeton beat Penn and Penn beat Harvard.

The Ivy League lucked out by having so many huge games in women's lacrosse happen to fall at the end of the schedule. Princeton, though, might not consider it lucky - the Tigers have to play the two other top 10 Ivy teams in a four-day stretch on the road.

It won't be easy, but hey, that's what this time of year - the time when winter and summer meet - is all about for the best teams.