Playing In Peoria

Well, it's definitely prime back-to-school time.

There are already schools on all levels that have opened, and the days of summer vacation are definitely numbered for those kids who haven't yet gone back.

There were even a handful of college football games this past weekend, not to mention a ton of other games in other sports across the country. Princeton is off to a 2-0 start for the year with a pair of wins by the women's soccer team.

One of the teams that opened its season was Boston College field hockey, who defeated Quinnipiac last Friday 7-0. Why does this random game warrant a mention here?

Well, Miss TigerBlog's buddy Nell Webber, who was her high school teammate a year ago in both field hockey and lacrosse, scored one of the goals for the Eagles in her first collegiate game. TigerBlog wanted to congratulate Nell on that.

If you were in the greater Princeton metropolitan area last week, then you felt a touch of the approaching autumn, especially at night. After about three months of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, with basically high humidity and a chance of thunderstorms pretty much every day, it was in the low 70s during the day and even dipped down into the 50s at night.

And now comes your reminder that summer is going to hang around for a little while. This week will feature temps back into the 90s and close to 100 actually.

It'll get back into feeling like fall early in September, but there will be another stretch of really hot weather mixed in after that as well. It works like that ever year.

Actually, the nicest the weather gets around here now is in September and October. It's what spring used to be like, back when there was a season called "spring." Not it goes from rainy and 50 every day to in the 80s overnight.

Regardless of the weather, the fall teams continue to practice as they approach opening days this coming Friday. 

It'll be warm in Illinois this weekend, though not quite this warm, when the men's soccer team opens its season there with a pair of games. The first is Friday at SIU-Edwardsville, and that will be followed by a game at Bradley Sunday.

TigerBlog isn't great at Illinois geography, and he didn't realize that Edwardsville is very close to St. Louis. TB actually hasn't spent much time in Illinois, and his only experience in being in Chicago has been flying in and out of its two airports.

He was in Champaign once, a long time ago, back in 1994, for a men's basketball tournament. Princeton got wiped out in the championship game by the host team, and that's really the extent of his time in the state.

As for the men's soccer team, they'll fly to St. Louis for the first game of the weekend and then fly back from Chicago. Bradley is located in Peoria, which appears to be about halfway between the two major cities.

Peoria, of course, is known for the expression "Will it play in Peoria?" which TB believes has some sort of theatrical origins. The men's soccer team will be taking it somewhat literally.

Princeton dropped a 1-0 decision to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville on Myslik Field a year ago, and the Cougars, who tied their  opener 2-2 with Memphis, play at home tonight against Missouri-Kansas City, a game that will be abbreviated as UMKC-SIEU.

As for Bradley, the Braves play at a facility called Shea Stadium. If you're a baseball fan, you recognize that as the name of the old stadium in which the New York Mets used to play.

This Shea Stadium also has a baseball background, and it makes for what looks like a pretty interesting venue. It served as the home for Bradley baseball from 1970 through 2002, when a new baseball stadium opened there.

Now it's just the home of Bradley soccer, but the grandstands still suggest baseball. In fact, when TigerBlog looked at the picture, the first thing he wondered was if the field could be reconfigured for baseball.

See for yourself HERE.

Either way, it looks really cool. It also appears that the two Shea Stadiums are not related, as the one at Bradley was a gift by a local businessman named Tim Shea.

As for the on-field product, Bradley is 1-0-1, with a tie against Gonzaga and a win over Oral Roberts. Bradley plays in Indianapolis against IUPUI Friday night.

This is the first meeting between Princeton and Bradley, who went from 2-15-3 two years ago to 11-7-3 a year ago. 

Princeton comes into the year after a year that saw the Tigers start out 2-6-2 and then finish 4-1-2. The home opener for the men's soccer team is Saturday, Sept. 8, against Monmouth.

In the meantime, enjoy the hot weather. Summer isn't quite ready to give up yet, and besides, it'll be freezing soon enough.