Sherrerd Soccer

TigerBlog had a lunch meeting yesterday with Dan Day, the University's Assistant VP for Communications.

To show you how reliant TB is on his phone for information, his weather app told him it wasn't going to rain until 3, which would have been after their lunch had ended. Because of that, TB didn't take his umbrella. And, because of that, he got wet when it actually started raining earlier than his phone has said.

Dan is one of TB's favorite people on this campus. He and TB are both old newspaper guys, and they have had and continue to have interesting conversations on the evolution of information and how it is consumed these days.

TigerBlog long ago gave up reading actual daily newspapers, and even Dan has finally done the same, he said.

News consumption these days comes largely from social media, even more so than online publications. This is good and bad, and that's a subject for another day.

It made for a somewhat funny discussion of the merits of Instagram, for instance. It's not quite what TB imagined back when he first started writing stories on his old Radio Shack TRS 80.

Meanwhile, back at the rain, it's done that every day since Saturday around here, and it's going to continue today it seems. TB remembers the last time the sun was shining, which was at the field hockey game against Duke last Friday, which Princeton won 3-2 and which got MaryKate Neff on SportsCenter.

Tomorrow, by the way, marks the second straight Friday where there is a home field hockey game at 4. This one is against Monmouth.

It's been nothing but gray of late, which stinks because September is usually the best weather month of the year in this area.

The weather is supposed to get better over the weekend, which is good. It's been awhile since there has been sun.

It's hard for TB to complain about the weather though. Not with what's going on in the Carolinas with the looming landfall of Hurricane Florence.

TB knows a few people who live down there, and they are taking things very seriously. His friend Mark lives in Myrtle Beach, and he has relocated inland, along with thousands of others. Hopefully it's not as bad as it seems it's going to be.

All of the rain here has forced the four home soccer games this week to be moved from Myslik Field to Sherrerd Field, the usual home of the lacrosse teams. Game 1 of the four games was last night, as the Tigers hosted Temple in the first actual soccer game to be played on the field.

Princeton would win the game 2-1 in overtime. Temple's goalkeeper, Simon Lefebvre, stands 6-9 by the way, which may make him the tallest soccer player in the world.

The women's team defeated Hofstra 2-1 Sunday night in a downpour. That game was played on Plummer Field, the practice field at Roberts Stadium, before the decision to move the other ones to Sherrerd, which, among other things, 1) makes it easier for fans to watch and 2) allows the games to be videostreamed on ESPN+.

The women's team is back at it tonight with its first game on Sherrerd, and it happens to be a top 25 matchup. Princeton comes in ranked No. 25 at 5-1-0, and Georgetown is ranked 10th, at 5-0-2.

This one figures to be a good one obviously. It starts at 7.

Mimi Asom is off to a great start in her senior year, as she is fifth in Division I in goals per game with 1.0 per game and 11th in total goals with six. For her career, she has 37 goals, leaving her three away from being the sixth player - three women and two men have done so - in school history to reach 40.

After that game, there's a men's game against Boston University Saturday at 4 and then another women's game Sunday against Drexel at 6.

Admission to all of those games is free.

Soccer isn't the only team at home in the next few days.

There's field hockey tomorrow and also Sunday, at 1, against Delaware, who was the NCAA champ two years ago, when Princeton also reached the Final Four.

There's also a women's tennis invitational all weekend.

This weekend also features the opening kickoff on the 2018 football season, though that game is in Indiana, at Butler. The home opener for the football team is next Saturday, against Monmouth.

Kickoff for that game is at 4:30.

Is it too much to ask for sunshine for that game?