The Late Show

So TigerBlog actually did stay up all the way to the end of the Premier League Lacrosse game Tuesday night.

And it didn't start at 10:30. It started about 10:45, not until the New York Rangers-Carolina Hurricanes game ended on NBC Sports Network before it.

That was okay for TB, since at the same time the hockey game was winding down, so was "A Few Good Men" on one of the other channels. TB put it on just in time to hear Lt. Weinberg say he had to head out to Andrews, which meant that it was only a few seconds until Colonel Jessup took the stand.

TB is reasonably sure he would have watched that scene even if it had overlapped with the start of the game. Maybe not if it overlapped with overtime or something like that, but hey, as movie scenes go, it doesn't get too much better than that. If ever.

That's another topic for another day, though.

The game, which ended close to 1, was a playoff game between the Archers and the Atlas. It was the third of the three elimination games Tuesday, and it set up the semifinals tonight.

The Archers feature Princeton alums Tom Schreiber and Ryan Ambler. Both of them would make huge contributions in the game Tuesday night, which their team would win 11-9.

Schreiber finished the game with three goals and two assists and essentially took over in the first half, when the Archers built an early lead that proved to be an insurmountable cushion. Ambler had two points, an assist on one of Schreiber's goals and then the late goal to make it 11-9, shortly after TB said he thought Ambler was about to score.

As TB watched the game, he retweeted some of the highlights of the Princetonians on the Princeton men's lacrosse Twitter feed. Then he noticed that someone else was tweeting and retweeting as well, including this gem:

🐯 All Over This Clip.

🚨: @TomSchreiber26
🍎: @ryan_ambler
🎤: @Ryan_Boyle14 @TigerLacrosse Taking Over!#PrincetonPros https://t.co/OHajJmio57

— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) August 5, 2020

The person who did that is TB's colleague Chas Dorman. He was wise to include Boyle in the tweet.

Ryan Boyle is another Princeton alum. He is also one of the greatest players ever to play at Princeton, a two-time first-team All-American, and his Tiger legacy includes an assist on the game-winning goal in the 2001 NCAA championship game (Princeton's sixth title) and then what is probably the best individual three or four minutes TB has seen from a Princeton athlete in the 2004 NCAA quarterfinals, a 9-8 OT win over Maryland.

Boyle scored two unassisted goals late to tie it, one with 1:55 to play and then the other with 12 seconds to play. He then assisted on Peter Trombino's goal in the overtime to win it.

TB's headline after the game: "Boyle Wills Princeton Past Maryland In Overtime And Back To The Final Four."

Boyle's quote after game: "The thought that this might be the end of my career never entered my mind."

Of course, this isn't to be confused with the goal that Boyle scored with four seconds to play in the 2002 quarterfinals, giving the Tigers a 14-13 win over Georgetown. TB's headline from that one: "Final 0:04." It's his best headline ever.

Boyle went on to a long career in professional and international lacrosse, and he's one of the very, very few players to have won an NCAA Division I championship, a professional outdoor championship (in his case Major League Lacrosse; the PLL is in its second year) and a World Championship. 

These days Boyle has emerged as a great lacrosse color commentator. He has done games on ESPN and in the studio, and he is in Utah with the PLL for the two weeks of games there.

His style as a broadcaster is basically an extension of how he was as a player, which is also an extension of his personality. He is either the most laid-back intense person TB has ever met, or the most intense laid-back person TB has ever met.  

Boyle's go-to emotional responses to things like incredible plays or bad decisions are either a small chuckle or a quick sentence of incredulity. At all times during the broadcast he appears to be having fun, even well into his third game of the day, as was the case Tuesday.

Going a bit deeper, though, he broadcasts like he played. He sees everything, with no detail unnoticed, and his mind puts the dots together faster than anyone else's.

This is especially noticeable on replays. Often times broadcasters will watch a replay and either wait for the replay to unfold to say what is at that point obvious or say something definitive that the replay then shows isn't exactly what happened. In Boyle's case, the play happens and then he'll say something like "you'll see what set that up is this ..." and then the replay shows him to be correct.

It's an incredible talent to have, to see a game that clearly and then be able to quickly articulate what you've seen to the audience. He also has a great balance between explaining the game to viewers who might not know lacrosse while not overdoing that aspect for those who are serious lacrosse fans.

Boyle's next games are tonight, as the Archers take on the Chaos at 8 Eastern (NBC Gold Package) and then the Whipsnakes and Redwoods at 10:30 on NBC Sports. The final is Sunday at 12:30 on NBC.

That's 12:30 pm, not 12:30 am.

Either way, if the Princeton guys are playing, TB will watch.