Old Lax

You know what's more expensive than you would think?

Grapes.

TigerBlog added up how much he's spending just on grapes, and it's extraordinary. It's around $120 a month, just on grapes. 

What the heck? Who would have guessed how much grapes cost? 

Of course, TB eats a lot of grapes. He likes to pretend their M&Ms. 

Now he has to cut back a bit, so he's going to decrease grapes and increase cantaloupes, which are more affordable. The problem with cantaloupes is that TB has no idea to tell a good one from a bad one in the supermarket. 

In other money news, TigerBlog wanted to watch the Premier Lacrosse League semifinal game Thursday night between the Archers, which has two Princeton alums, and the Chaos, which went 0-4 during the one-week "regular season."

The problem is that the game was only available through the league's streaming package, and it cost $20. There was no single-game option, and TB hadn't purchased it yet, which meant that he had to shell out the full $20 for the season and only get the one game.

Then he thought back to all of his experience with NCAA quarterfinal games and photography, especially a long time ago, in the pre-social media days. He was always wary of those games, since if Princeton won, then he'd want to get a lot of pictures from the Final Four (of whatever sports it was) and if Princeton lost, he wouldn't really want those pictures once the year ended.

The same thing applied Thursday night.

If the Archers won, TB would simply have watched the championship game Sunday. If they lost, he'd be annoyed he spent the $20.

As it turned out, the Archers lost 13-9, ending their season one game short of the championship game. For TB, it was a $20 savings.

He did watch the final. It was the last lacrosse game of the year, so why not, right? 

The Whipsnakes won their second straight PLL title with a 12-6 win over the Chaos, who led 6-3 after three quarters and trailed after a four-goals-in-48-seconds span to start the fourth quarter.

And congratulations to Max Tuttle, a midfielder with the Whipsnakes and a teammate of TigerBlog Jr.'s at Sacred Heart.

If he wanted to watch lacrosse this weekend, he did have the option of the 2006 Princeton-Virginia men's game, which ended up on the ACC Network Saturday. 

Maybe the most interesting part for TB was trying to remember who wore any specific number in 2006. He did pretty well in retaining the roster.  

TigerBlog remembered two things about that game. First was the colossal rain that fell all over Princeton Stadium that day before the game. The second was the 20-save performance of Alex Hewit in goal for the Tigers.

Princeton ended up losing that game 7-6, despite how good Hewit was. 

What TB didn't remember was that Virginia's team that day was loaded with future coaches. Both Ben Rubeor (who coached the Atlas in the PLL) and Matt Poskay (currently the head coach at Montclair State and formerly the head coach at Wagner) scored goals in that game (as did current ESPN commentator Matt Ward, who had two). UVa's goalie that day, Kip Turner, is a Virginia assistant coach today.

Rubeor, by the way, is also the head coach at the Thayer Academy, which is the alma mater of Princeton's former four-year starting goalie Tyler Blaisdell.

What's really interesting to TB as he looked back at the 2006 Princeton season is the scores of the games that year. Princeton finished the year 11-5 and reached the NCAA quarterfinals.

Only once in 16 games that year did Princeton play a game in which both teams reached double figures in goals. In eight of those games, neither team reached double figures, and in 12 of 16, neither team scored more than 11.

If you contrast that with the last 16 games Princeton played (five this year, the last 11 of the 2019 season), then there were 12 games in that span where both teams reached double figures and one where neither team did (a 9-8 loss at Rutgers a year ago).

In only one of those 16 games did neither team score more than 11.

This isn't an accident. College lacrosse has had a nearly complete overhaul of the rules related to timing and pace of play with the goal of, well, goals. It's clearly paid off. And yes, having Michael Sowers certainly helped the cause of offense, but it's a differently played game now.

TB could see it from watching the game on TV. It just looked different.

Of course, TB loved the way the game was played back then too. It was fun to watch it again - except for the outcome.

Even 14 years after the fact, it was still a tough one to take.