Seeing The World - And Pennsylvania

The summer athletic travels of those representing Princeton may finally have ended.

TigerBlog isn't sure of any remaining international competitions for the summer of 2017 for Princeton and its coaches and alums. It's been quite a successful few months, with medals earned in major international competitions in places like Israel, Bulgaria, Italy, England and New Zealand. Is TB missing other places?

To that list, you can add some other exotic locations. Like Tokyo. And Lancaster.

You know. Lancaster. The one in Pennsylvania.

TigerBlog will start there.

Kat Sharkey made the long trip all the way to a few exits out on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Lancaster, to a rather fascinating little venue called Spooky Nook. Though it sounds like the name of a town in a Washington Irving story and from the inside reminds you of a really big airport terminal, Spooky Nook is an athletic venue and one of the hubs for indoor and outdoor field hockey in this country.

It was also the site for the Pan American Cup field hockey tournament last week. Sharkey, a 2013 Princeton alum, would be the tournament's leading scorer as the U.S. won bronze, defeating Canada in the third-place game.

For all of the great players Princeton field hockey has had through the years, none of them has ever scored more than Sharkey. In fact, Sharkey is the program's all-time leader in points (245) and goals (107), has the two highest individual point totals for a season (85 in 2012, 74 in  2010) and the single-game records with six goals and 12 points (at Richmond, Sept. 10, 2010).

That's a lot of goals.

Sharkey already has experience at the highest levels of international field hockey, having played in the 2016 Olympics for the United States. The Americans had a great start to that tournament and got into the medal round, only to fall short against Great Britain in the quarterfinals.

Sharkey was one of three Princeton alums in Rio a year ago, along with the Reinprecht sisters, both of whom have retired after playing in the last two Olympic Games. Sharkey also teamed with the in 2012, when Princeton won the NCAA championship.

TigerBlog figures Sharkey will still very much be in the mix three years from now, when the Olympics will be in Tokyo. If she does go there, she can ask Courtney Banghart what it's like,

Banghart, the head coach of women's basketball at Princeton, spent the last few weeks as an assistant coach with the United States U23 team, ahead of the Four Nations tournament in Japan. What is the Four Nation's tournament? TigerBlog wasn't sure, so he looked it up:
The 2017 U24 Four Nations Tournament provided meaningful competition and development opportunities. The USA's participation in the tournament was intended to help further develop the USA Basketball athlete pipeline and to help prepare athletes for possible future participation in the USA Basketball Women's National Team pool.

The United States team featured top college players from around the country. Not surprisingly, the Americans swept the other three teams there - Australia, Japan and Canada.

The event for the U.S. was about, as it said, player development and international exposure. And, for that matter, coaching development.

Banghart was an assistant for the U.S. team. The head coach was Louiville's Jeff Walz.

The fact that Princeton's coach was chosen for her spot with USA Basketball shows just how much national respect Banghart has piled up in her first 10 years with the Tigers. The record that she and top assistant Milena Flores, the only one who has been with her for all 10 years here, has put together is astonishing.

Princeton, before Banghart became head coach, had been to zero NCAA tournaments and one WNIT. In her first two years, as she began to build her program, she went 7-23 and 14-14.

Since then, it's been eight years, eight postseasons, with six NCAA tournaments, an NCAA tournament win (the first in program history) and an NCAA at-large bid (the only one in Ivy basketball history).

Her record for the last eight years is 187-50. In the league during that time? It's 100-12. That's insane.

A hundred wins against 12 losses. That's basically winning your league games nine out of 10 times.

Success that like gets noticed, and it's helped Banghart get involved in coaching on the national team level. The experience that she had this summer can't help but give her even greater perspective as she comes back to Princeton, where her team will be lead by sophomore Bella Alarie, who won a silver medal with the U.S. team at the World U19 Championships in Italy.

It's been that kind of summer for Princeton's athletes and coaches.

Compete. And see the world. Even the part of it that's called Pennsylvania.