Long Time No See

When TigerBlog first saw that Princeton was playing Colgate in men's lacrosse this season, he tried to remember back to the last time the teams had played.

At first he tried to remember if he'd ever been at a Princeton-Colgate game, and he was pretty sure he hadn't. As it turns out, he was right about that.

Princeton and Colgate meet tonight at 6 on Sherrerd Field, and it's not exactly a rivalry with a ton of history. And what history there is could be best described as "ancient."

In fact, it's pretty unlikely that anyone at tonight's game was at the last meeting, since it was 91 years ago.

The game tonight is just the second between the two. The other two meetings were in 1922 and 1929. So yeah, there's not much there.

Princeton first started playing men's lacrosse in 1881, but the sport was dropped in 1894 because of, and TB quotes a book on 19th century Princeton athletics directly: "due to lack of sufficient interest and the deterioration of the quality of the team."

What in the world must 19th century lacrosse have looked like, by the way?

Anyway, Princeton brought its team back in 1921 with three games against club teams and then a college schedule in 1922. Colgate first started playing the sport in 1921, and the teams met in Princeton in 1922, a game the Tigers won 11-3 (or 10-3 according to Colgate's record book).

Interestingly, both teams played a touring team from Oxford-Cambridge that year as well. 

The next meeting was in 1929. Princeton won that one 7-3.

Why didn't the teams ever play again? Who knows.

Colgate has been in the Patriot League for a long time. Princeton, though it has played a lot of Patriot League football and men's and women's basketball games, has not done in men's lacrosse. In fact, other than a handful of games against Lehigh and one last year against Navy, Princeton hasn't done much scheduling in the Patriot League.

Anyway, don't expect Princeton to have much momentum tonight off of its other two wins in the series. Or to have Colgate burning for revenge.

Both teams are in the very early stages of seasons that they hope will take them into the conference tournaments and then hopefully beyond. Colgate is 0-2 after opening with losses at North Carolina and Syracuse, a pair of teams in the top 10.

Princeton is 1-0 on the year after a 20-9 win over Monmouth Saturday in its opener. It was a win that didn't move Princeton into the Top 20 nationally, but TB doesn't care at all about that right now. Princeton will have every opportunity this year to show whether or not it belongs.

Princeton's schedule still includes three games against teams in this week's top eight and five against teams in the top 15. Of those five games, four will be in the five Princeton plays immediately after the one against Colgate, beginning Saturday at defending NCAA champion Virginia.

After that, it's a run of games at home against Johns Hopkins (No. 15), Rutgers (was ranked until it lost to Army West Point this week) and Penn (No. 8) and then at Yale (No. 3). It doesn't get much easier after that either, by the way, with the rest of the stacked Ivy League, including a regular-season ending game against No. 11 Cornell.

As TB said, if Princeton deserves to be ranked, it has every chance to show it.

Also having said that, TB is pretty sure there are not 20 teams in the country better than Princeton. The team is a good spot, though, with the spotlight way off of it.

For tonight, it's Colgate. The Raiders come to Princeton not having played in 10 days, so the they have had a chance to sort out some early-season issues. Expect this game to be very competitive.

And there. TB just gave you a whole Princeton men's lacrosse piece without every mentioning Michael Sowers.

Oh wait. He just did.

Well, as long as he brought him up, check out this video from the Monmouth game. The recipient of the pass is Phillip Robertson, who now has 60 career goals, 28 of them assisted by Sowers.

 

The job Robertson does in getting open, catching the ball and finishing is incredible enough, let alone the move from Sowers to get free, the vision to find Robertson and the courage to make the pass.

It looks really simple, but it isn't.

Anyway, Princeton-Colgate tonight.

Show your ticket stub from the last meeting between the teams and get in free.