3-0 x Three

TigerBlog has been wondering something about dogs for a long time.

How does a dog know that other dogs are actually dogs, even if they look nothing alike, while also knowing that every other animal isn't a dog?

You've seen this a million times. There is one small dog and one giant dog, and as soon as they walked past each other, they flip out like they're long-lost brothers. Except how do they know that they're both dogs?

It would be like if a human walked past something that could be three or four times its size and never questioned what species it was.

And that same small dog could see a rabbit or squirrel or something much closer to its size and either give a bark or a bored look. It's nothing like seeing any other dog.

The unquestioned highlight of TigerBlog's interactions with dogs this weekend came at Class of 1952 Stadium Sunday, when he saw a dog growling and ready to attack. And who had gotten this pup so fired up?

It was the concrete Tiger on top of a column. Lucky for the concrete Tiger that the dog was on the concourse and not able to reach the top. Also, it was just as lucky for the dog that the Tiger wasn't real.

Anyway, the word TB would use to describe it would be "hilarious." The word TigerBlog would use to describe Princeton's athletic weekend? How about "successful?"

TB went through the football team's win over Monmouth yesterday, so he won't go back to that today, other to say it was Princeton 51, Monmouth 9 and that the Ivy League opener is coming up Friday night at Columbia. TB will have more on that later in the week.

In the meantime, there was the little matter of the three teams that opened their Ivy League seasons this past weekend.

All three are the defending league champion. All three were picked to repeat in the Ivy preseason poll. All three got off to a good start by winning their opener. And all three won by the same score - 3-0.

Let's start with women's volleyball.

Princeton opened the double round robin schedule with a sweep at Penn, one that saw the Tigers win by scores of 25-18, 25-19 and 28-26 after Penn had a set ball in the third.

There aren't too many sports that compete here about which TB knows less than he does about volleyball. What he does know is that Sabrina King has been a part of eight Ivy League championship teams here - three as a player, two as an assistant coach and three more as the head coach.

TigerBlog will add that to the list of things he wants to research. Has anyone else here ever won multiple Ivy titles as a player, assistant coach and head coach? Nobody is leaping to mind right away, though Greg Hughes is one away as the men's heavyweight head coach from matching that.

Then there was the field hockey team, which defeated Dartmouth 3-0 Saturday. TigerBlog originally wrote that the game was at Dartmouth, which is what he thought, so he apologizes to anyone who drove all the way up to New Hampshire for the game.

Princeton is 6-3 on the year after having played among the toughest non-league schedules in the country. For the rest of the way, there are six Ivy games plus games against BU (this Sunday at home) and defending NCAA champ UConn (winner of 32 straight, Oct. 7 at UConn).

Princeton would outshoot Dartmouth 22-3 in the 3-0 win. The goals came from three different players - Sophia Tornetta, MaryKate Neff and Jane Donio-Enscoe.

The 3-0 win in women's soccer over Yale saw one player account for all of the scoring. That would be Mimi Asom, who had her second career three-goal game.

Beyond that, Asom - who scored just before the half and then twice more in the second half - became the fourth Princeton women's soccer player to go along with two men's soccer players to reach the 40-goal mark for a career. Asom also has 88 career points, leaving her 12 away from becoming the third Princeton woman to reach 100 career points, something no men's player has done.

In other words, Asom is in very, very elite company in the history of Princeton soccer.

Junior Natalie Grossi posted her 20th career shutout, making her the third women's soccer player in program history to get to that number. Grossi now trails only Jordan Rettig (23) and Kelly O'Dell (22), though Grossi would be the first person to tell you that this is function of the defense in front of her as much as her.

Anyway, as opening Ivy League weekends go, this one was pretty good.

There is a long way to go for all of them as they pursue their goals of course, but 3-0 was an excellent start. All three times.