Another Weekend, Another 31 Events

If you like the sound of TigerBlog's voice, this was a good week for you.

He did four podcasts - women's basketball, men's and women's lacrosse and even football - and tomorrow he'll be doing radio for men's lacrosse at Virginia.

He started out the women's lacrosse podcast with a story about one of the current Tiger captains, Katie Reilly, whom TB saw in the Jadwin Gym lobby the other afternoon. She waved at TB, who was talking to an older man, who instinctively waved back, even though he didn't know who it was who was waving at him.

It's human nature. Someone waves in your direction. You wave back. Someone says hi in your direction. You say hi back.

Even if they're waving or saying hi to the person behind you. It's okay. Don't feel bad next time it happens to you.

Anyway, TB then went up to Reilly to ask her if she knew who the other guy was, and she said no. Then TB explained who it was.

Pete Carril.

She said his name was familiar. This got TB to thinking, and then on the podcast talking to Chris Sailer (herself a Hall-of-Fame coach, like Carril) about how the current generation of athletes don't necessarily know who the people who came before them are.

And that's normal, TB supposes. It was just pretty fascinating in the moment.

Reilly and her teammates have an important early season game tomorrow against Virginia in a match-up of top 10 teams - Princeton at No. 9 and UVa at No. 8. Beyond that, it's also the lone home game for the women's lacrosse team from the start of the season last week and March 24, as seven of the first eight are away.

The women's game is part of just another typical weekend here in crossover season, one that will see Princeton teams compete in 31 different events between today and Sunday.

The Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships are among the marquee events, as Princeton is in second place, two points back of Harvard, after two days. Here's a good sign for the future of Princeton women's swimming - the four swimmers (Ellie Marquardt, Nicole Venema, Amelia Liu and Addison Smith) who set the school record in the 800 free relay are all freshmen.

This is also the final weekend of the regular season in women's hockey. The Tigers are home tonight at 6 (Brown) and tomorrow at 3 (Yale), and they know they'll be home next weekend in the first round of the ECAC playoffs.

They also know if they win that round, they'll be at Cornell for the league semifinals, unless Cornell loses a first round series.

What Princeton doesn't know is its seed, which would be two with two wins and could still be two without two wins but could be as low as four if things don't go well.

Princeton is looking to get back to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. 

The court that is named for Pete Carril in Jadwin Gym will also be busy, this weekend and in fact for the next eight days, during which time five games will be played there by the women's basketball team..

The Tigers, back in the national rankings, host Harvard tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow (both at 6), and then Penn Tuesday (7), Brown next Friday (6) and Yale a week from tomorrow (5).

Should the Tigers win those five games, they'd be the Ivy League champion. Right now Princeton is two games up on Penn and three up on Yale and Harvard, while Columbia is one game back of Yale and Harvard for the fourth Ivy tournament spot.

On the men's side, it's a five-team race for both first place and for the four Ivy tournament spots. Right now, Princeton and Yale are both 6-2, and Brown, Penn and Harvard are all 5-3.

Princeton spends its weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth. Every game is huge.

If you're looking for sunny and near 60 for your February weekend, you can go to Charlottesville tomorrow to see Princeton-UVa men's lacrosse. The teams played an OT game on Sherrerd Field a year ago before Virginia won - and then went on to win the NCAA title.

Sorry to have to be brief here, but there's just too many events to go in depth on all of them. The full schedule is HERE.

Oh, one more - your Ivy League champion wrestling team is back in Jadwin Sunday at 6 against Rutgers in what is always a great match.

Ivy League champion wrestling team. That sounds pretty good.