A Tale Of Two Big Wins

Sometimes, you just have the right picture when you need it.

If you went to goprincetontigers.com yesterday, you saw the story about the Ivy League weekly football awards. Princeton had two winners — quarterback Blake Stenstrom was the Offensive Player of the Week, and Ryan Butler was the Rookie of the Week — after the 37-10 win over Harvard.

For Butler, by the way, that's four times in six weeks that Butler has been the Ivy Rookie of the Week. Butler now has nine rushing touchdowns, ranking him ninth in the FCS in rushing touchdowns per game. He also has caught one for another TD.

And there was the perfect picture to go along with the story, a great shot of the two winners together. You can see it HERE.

Speaking of Ivy Players of the Week, Princeton field hockey player Gabby Andretta did not win — again. 

TigerBlog can understand. Andretta plays every minute of every game and pretty much never has any stats. In fact, she has started all 73 games Princeton has played in her career, and here is the entirety of her career stats: two shots, no goals.

Don't let that fool you, though. She has had a huge impact on every game she's played. It's just that it doesn't really translate into individual honors to play the defensive position she plays. 

Each time TB has nominated her for Player of the Week, he's written the same thing: impossible to quantify but always makes a huge impact.

She did it again Sunday against Harvard, in a showdown of Ivy unbeatens that figured to go a long way towards deciding the league championship. Princeton won the game 4-2, putting the Tigers in the driver's seat towards a league title (which would be the program's 27th) and the NCAA tournament automatic bid.

Princeton scored three times in the first 8:10 and then added insurance after the Crimson made it a 3-2 game in the third quarter. Andretta led a defense that held the Crimson to seven shots for the game, of which four came off a penalty corner in the third quarter that led to one of the Harvard goals.

That was one of two Harvard corners in the game. That's extraordinary. Harvard had 37 corners in its previous three games combined. 

If you count up the number of times that the ball entered the circle and how many times Andretta handled it when any miscue would have resulted in a corner, you begin to understand the impact that she has on the game.

With that win, Princeton improved to 5-0 in the league, with a game Sunday at home against Brown and then a trip to Columbia the Saturday after. The Tigers need a win in either game to clinch at least a tie for the Ivy title, and a win in either game would mean the automatic NCAA bid. 

By the way, TB will be posting a feature story on the field hockey program's remarkable Donovan family. Claire, a senior, is the last of the four Donovan sisters to play for the Tigers, and the family impact on the program has been extraordinary. 

Meanwhile, 3,000 miles away from the field hockey game, there was the matter of Princeton-Stanford water polo. Princeton, ranked ninth in the country, was playing at No. 3 Stanford, a team that was 10-0 against the Tigers heading in.

Make that 10-1. 

Roko’s game-winner! It’s the first win in 11 games for Princeton over Stanford! https://t.co/vFSA0ya6rT pic.twitter.com/SAt7wFtcu3

— Princeton Water Polo (@Pwaterpolo) October 23, 2022

Roko Pozaric scored with 13 seconds left to give Princeton a stunning 11-10 win over the Cardinal. HERE, by the way, is the stort TB wrote about Pozaric a year ago, before Princeton left for the NCAA tournament.

How stunning? Stanford's story referred to it as a "rare non-MPSF loss." Stanford is one of the gold standards of the sport of water polo, and by gold standard, consider that the team has won 11 NCAA titles and been the runner-up 11 other times.

To take down the Cardinal is a major accomplishment. Princeton is 11-1 now in the month of October and clearly playing its best at the right time. You can see the Tigers at DeNunzio Pool Saturday, with games against St. Francis and Iona.