Lindsey, Anita and SUMO

TigerBlog was standing on the sidewalk that leads out of Harvard's Jordan Field Saturday afternoon after watching the men's and women's lacrosse doubleheader.

As he stood there, talking with some of the other women's lacrosse parents, he saw a familiar face, one that he originally couldn't place, even after she called him by name. He hates being in this situation, by the way.

Before he could have the internal conversation that goes like this: "Who is that? I should know this. Just say 'hey' and go from there and it'll come to you," she introduced herself. 

"I'm SUMO," she said. 

Ah yes. SUMO. That's who that is. In fairness, TB had never met her in person. He'd just seen her on Zoom and in pictures. 

SUMO is Suzanne Morrison, one of the women feature in TigerBlog's women's athletic history book. She is one of only three women to win three varsity letters as a Princeton senior, along with two legendary 1970s Princeton athletes, Emily Goodfellow and Amie Knox. 

In Morrison's case, she was a four-year letterwinner in women's hockey. She also won varsity letters as a senior as the manager of the field hockey and women's lacrosse teams. Her story is in the three-sport letterwinners chapter, which is one of TB's favorite parts of the book. 

It was great to meet her in person. TigerBlog hasn't actually met in person many of the women he wrote about, so it was good to actually get to spend some time together.

As they were talking, two other familiar faces walked by. This time, TB immediately remembered the one who said hello.

It turned out to be Anita Rackovan, who was a former women's lacrosse player and who was a student worker before she was even at Princeton. Anita was with Lindsey Biles, one of the top players the women's lacrosse program has ever seen and one of the top clutch players the program has ever seen.

Up until a few weeks ago, Biles was the third-leading goal-scorer in Princeton history and was fourth all-time at Princeton in points. Biles graduated in 2005 and was a Tewaaraton finalist as a senior, not to mention a first-team All-American as a junior and senior. Her other honors included being a four-time All-Ivy selection, including first-team her last two years, and the 2005 Ivy League Player of the Year Award. 

As a freshman, she had three goals and one assist in the 12-7 win over Georgetown in the NCAA championship game. She had two more goals in the 2003 championship game, which was an 8-7 overtime win over Virginia. Rackovan was a freshman on the 2003 team.

TB introduced Anita and Lindsey to SUMO, a member of the Class of 1989. It's always great to see people from different generations who have that immediate common bond of having been Princeton athletes.

As the 2022 season has gone along, Kyla Sears has moved Biles down one spot in both goals and points. Biles finished her career with 175 goals and 221 points. Sears now has 272 points, and she just moved past Biles in goals, with 181. 

Ahead of Sears are Olivia Hompe with 198 goals and Crista Samaras with 189. Sears is now second in points, having moved past Samaras this past Saturday with a seven-point effort in that Harvard game. Sears now has 272 for her career, leaving her 13 shy of tying Hompe. 

The Princeton women have bigger things on their minds than record-chasing at this point, though. The Tigers are currently 5-0 in the Ivy League with a game tomorrow afternoon at Columbia. After that, the Tigers finish the regular season at home Saturday against Yale.

And what are the Bulldogs? They're already 6-0 in the league. Win or lose against Columbia, who is 0-6 in the league, Princeton knows its game against Yale will determine who hosts the Ivy League tournament. If Princeton wins against the Lions tomorrow, that game also becomes winner-take-all for the Ivy title.

The women's game, by the way, is the second game of a doubleheader that begins with the men against Cornell at noon. The winner of that game gets a share of the Ivy title and an Ivy tournament spot.