More Records

TigerBlog was talking about record-chasers yesterday.

Those were career record-chasers, by the way. One of the best parts about sports is that you never know when someone is going to have a huge game, one that lands that particular person in the record books themselves.

The women's lacrosse team defeated Columbia 19-7 in its Ivy League opener this past Saturday. Sophomore Gaby Hamburger had five assists for the Tigers in that one.

For Hamburger, they were her first five career points. They also left her one assist away from the school single-game record of six, and they left her as one of nine players in program history to have at least five in a game.

Hamburger had five assists in less than 20 minutes, which has to be fairly close to a record, even though such records don't exist. Most impressively, she had assists to five different players - Kari Buonnano, Kyla Sears, Katie Reilly, Grace Taukus and Annie Cory.

That could be a record, assists to five players in a women's lacrosse game. Maybe TB will look that up at some point. 

Speaking of records, TB mentioned yesterday that Bella Alarie of the women's basketball team was closing in on the all-time scoring record for Princeton. As she heads into this weekend's trip to Columbia and Cornell, she has 1,680 career points, leaving her three away from the record of Sandi Bittler Leland that has stood since 1990.

Alarie has played 104 career games, and she has missed 17 games due to injury the last two years. At her scoring  rate the last two years, that would be 267 additional points, which would have her closing in on 2,000, something only three Ivy League women's basketball players have ever done (Diana Caramanico, Penn, 2,415; Allison Feaster, Harvard, 2,312; Hana Peljto, Harvard, 2,109).

Of course, Niveen Rasheed missed half of a season with her own injury and finished with 1,617. Had she been healthy all that time, she might have made a run of her own at 2,000.

And none of that takes into account how many times both Alarie and Rasheed played fewer than 30 minutes of games that were long decided. Still, you can only go by what the actual numbers are.

Alarie is actually going after another record this weekend. Alarie was named the Ivy League Player of the Week again this week, marking the 20th time in her career she has been so honored. The Ivy League record is 21, by Feaster.

By the way, both Alarie and Feaster were Ivy Rookie of the Week nine times each.

TB saw that in the Ivy League record book. He also saw that four times in Ivy women's basketball history, a team has had three first-team All-Ivy League selections. Of those four, Princeton did it three times:
1977-78 C.B. Tomasiewicz, Margaret Meier, Jackie Jackson
2010-11 Devona Allgood, Lauren Edwards, Addie Micir
2014-15 Blake Dietrick,  Annie Tarakchian, Alex Wheatley

The fourth was from Harvard's 1992-93 team.

Princeton has already clinched the Ivy League women's basketball championship and the No. 1 seed in next weekend's Ivy League tournament. Princeton, Penn and Columbia have all clinched Ivy tournament spots, but Princeton could play either Penn, Columbia, Harvard and Yale in the semifinals.

As for the men, Princeton goes into the final weekend of the regular season knowing that it is already in the Ivy tournament. The Tigers could still tie for the league championship with a sweep of Columbia and Cornell at home, a Dartmouth win over Yale, a Harvard win over Yale and a Harvard loss to Brown.

Princeton, Yale and Harvard have all clinched their tournament spots. Penn and Brown enter the final weekend tied, though Penn holds the tiebreaker.

It figures to be an exciting event in Cambridge next weekend. There is no clear-cut definitive favorite on the men's side, and you can make a case for pretty much any of the five teams still in the running.

Before that, you have this weekend.

It's Princeton-Columbia Friday night at 7, and then it's Senior Night at Jadwin Saturday for the Cornell game (tip-off at 6).

It's March now, and you know what that means. It's almost time for Madness, and both Princeton teams are looking to make the most of their opportunities.