Charging Maya

Congratulations go out to men's lacrosse coach Matt Madalon and his wife Ashleigh on the birth of their first child.

Waverly Rose Madalon was born Monday, and according to her dad, everyone is doing great. Isn't that what new fathers always say?

Here is TigerBlog's advice to new parents:

If you have a television in your bedroom, leave it on, with the sound turned off, all night long. That way, when the baby wakes up, you won't have to turn the lights on for feeding and changing and such, so the baby starts to get a sense of the difference between night and day. Also, you can watch the TV while you're feeding the baby. Win-win.

TigerBlog's other piece of advice is if you have a baby boy. Create a flap about 1/2 inch wide at the top of the diaper and then fold it back towards the baby's tummy. Trust him on this one. It'll come in handy one day.

Actually, it was Amy Campbell, who works in Nassau Hall, who gave TigerBlog that tip.

Ah, babies. They're so cute and so much fun and make you feel all warm and cuddly - especially when they're someone else's. Thinking back on his own experiences of baby-raising, TigerBlog is left with one thought - how in the world did he ever do all that?

TigerBlog's first effort at changing a diaper didn't go well. By the time he got to the end, he could change one faster than they can changes tires at the Indy 500. He was an expert.

The sound of a baby crying never bothered him, or at least never bothered him as much as the sound of a whiny toddler. On the other hand, there were plenty of other things about babies that did bother him - you know, like the fact that folding one load of baby clothes takes about three times longer than folding a normal load of laundry. And when you have a baby, you do a lot of laundry.

Anyway, good luck to the Madalons. And, as the nights get a little long, at least they can know what their future holds, such as text messages like this one from TigerBlog's own precious little baby - "hey. my car is almost out of gas. Can you come get it and fill it up and then leave me some money so my friends and I can go out to lunch?"

Yeah. Precious.

The first game to be played on the Princeton campus since the birth of Waverly Rose will be, of course, between Cornell and Notre Dame. Who else would it be?

That game is tomorrow night at 7 on Sherrerd Field in the opening round of the NCAA women's lacrosse tournament. The winner of that game will get Princeton Sunday at 1 in the Round of 16, and the winner will head to the quarterfinals.

If the seeds on the other bracket hold, that would be against Penn State. If they don't, then it would be Louisville or James Madison. It could also be at Princeton, if the Tigers win and Penn State loses, but that is getting way, way, way ahead of things.

The game Sunday will be a rematch for Princeton, as the Tigers have a win over Notre Dame from March, the 11th, to be exact, the day of the Ivy League basketball tournament semifinals. If you recall, it was really, really cold that day. Princeton is also 2-0 against Cornell, which isn't necessarily a comforting thought if you have to try to beat a team three times.

In other NCAA news, the women's golf team competed in the NCAA regional in Georgia the last three days.

There were four regionals of 18 teams each, with the top six teams advancing to the NCAA championships, to be held next weekend in Illinois. Princeton, the Ivy League champion, did well but would not finish in the top six.

In addition to the teams, though, there would also be three other individuals from non-qualifying teams who would advance from each regional. In the event of a tie, there would be a playoff.

Princeton freshman Maya Walton birdied three of the last four holes Tuesday in the second round to put herself into contention for one of those spots. Then, yesterday afternoon, she birdied the final three.

These weren't the same holes, either. In Tuesday's round, she started at the first hole and finished on 15-18. In yesterday's round, she started on 10, which meant she finished on 7-8-9.

With her two great charges, Walton finished at minus-two for the 54 holes. This left her in a four-way tie for sixth at the time with golfers from Northwestern, Alabama and Baylor, all of whom were comfortably in the team qualifying range and therefore none of whom could impact Walton's path to the championships.

Walton trailed two golfers whose teams would not be advancing - Jennifer Kupcho of Wake Forest was the overall winner at minus-nine, and Laura Fuenfstueck of the College of Charleston, who was in fifth at minus-3. There were golfers still on the course who could catch her, and so TigerBlog followed along on the live stats.

As he did, it dawned on him that Walton was in pretty good shape, since the most likely challenger, Tennessee's Blakesly Warren, would have pushed the Vols from behind North Carolina to ahead of North Carolina for the last team spot if she caught Walton, because Warren was four shots back of Walton and Tennessee was three shots back of UNC. In other words, Warren couldn't impact Walton.

This meant that the closest threat came from Natalie Nygren of North Florida, who was nine shots back of Walton with four holes left. It seemed unlikely that Nygren would make up that many shots in so few holes.

And she didn't.

And Walton's group ultimately ended up fifth.

And so Maya Walton is off to Illinois. She becomes the first Princeton women's golfer to qualify for the NCAA championships since Kelly Shon did in 2013. Shon, by the way, has earned just short of $400,000 on the LPGA tour so far.

So congratulations to Maya.

And mazel tov to the Madalons.