Okay, she's not an athlete. She is, though, a huge part of Princeton Athletics and, if you ask TigerBlog, one of the biggest looming graduation losses.
Sophia is a Princeton senior who, since the football season of her sophomore year, has been keeping stats at pretty much any event where she's been needed. She picked up the intricacies of the different sports and computer program like it was nothing. TB is pretty sure she was already at the keyboard about one quarter into her first football game.
There's another student, also a senior, who is a key part of the stat-keeping lineup. His name is Austin Isgrig. Usually, or at least at the men's lacrosse games, Sophia will enter the stats into the program as TB calls them out, while Austin takes care of the social media.
TigerBlog felt really badly when he didn't let Austin take over the keyboard spot (sort of like the pilot's seat) for the second half of the Princeton-Penn men's lacrosse game. He let Austin take over for the next home game, against Marist, and he went the distance pretty much flawlessly.
He, too, will be tough to replace.
Though Sophia would have had a great career in entering stats, she instead will turn her back on all of that potential and instead enter into an MD/Ph.D. program, probably at the Mayo Clinic, beginning this summer. TB thinks it was his letter of recommendation that got her there, either that or her essentially flawless academic record at Princeton. One or the other.
TB can't even begin to imagine how difficult an MD/Ph.D. program is. What he does know is that when she's done, she'll be an extraordinary doctor/researcher. One of these days, albeit several years from now, she'll be making real difference in people's lives.
Meanwhile, back in the press box, the ability to watch plays back on video has made a huge impact on the quality of keeping stats. To that end, the addition of ESPN+ has been amazing.
Sophia, by the way, has an ESPN+ account of her own. She says it's her dads and that he likes to watch games that she stats back in California.
The growth of ESPN+ and the Ivy League on ESPN has been more than just a way to have better stats. Maybe even including social media, the evolution of videostreaming from its birth to the productions that exist now is as big as anything that's ever happened in college athletics other than the internet itself.
In decades past, it would have been impossible to watch even one game of almost every sport at Princeton. Now? If there's a game that's not streamed, or isn't streamed on ESPN+, it seems so strange not to be able to watch.
Take softball, for instance. If you're a Princeton parent or alum, you can watch pretty much every game. The first one of yesterday's doubleheader at Yale was a little more special, in pretty much every way.
For starters, it was televised on ESPNU.
Second, Princeton won 12-0 as Alexis Laudenslager threw a no-hitter and struck out 10 and Serena Starks homered. That's the first career home run for Starks, a junior, and the second career no-hitter for Laudenslager, also a junior.
Second no-hitter in a month, shutout, three walks, 10 Ks, and a win, all on ESPNU.
— Princeton Softball (@PUSoftball) April 17, 2022
🗣️ Hear from Alexis Laudenslager: pic.twitter.com/ukUpazvWWn
Game 2 yesterday was back on ESPN+, and Princeton won that one too, 5-4, completing a three-game sweep of the Bulldogs after a 9-1 win Saturday.
Because of Covid issues that have messed with the schedule, there are three Ivy teams who have played 15 games (Princeton, Columbia and Brown) and two teams (Dartmouth and Cornell) who have played nine. With that disparity, it's hard to tell who's actually where in the standings, but Princeton is a strong 11-4.
Harvard is 9-3. Dartmouth is 6-3. Every other team in the league has at least seven losses.
The top two teams in the league will advance to the league championship series. The winner of that goes to the NCAA tournament.
Softball gets really strong ratings on ESPN, especially the NCAA tournament. In the new world of college athletics, though, it doesn't take cable TV to watch a game.
Of course, when you do have that change, putting up a 12-0 victory does make a good impression.
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