On The Road

If you're looking for TigerBlog next week, don't look in Princeton.

He'll be in Andorra and Spain, with the men's lacrosse team, which is getting to make an international trip for the first time since 2016. It'll be TB's fourth such trip, after going to Spain and Ireland in 2008, Costa Rica in 2012 and Portugal in 2016.

Back on the trip in 2016, TB put aside his fear of open heights to zipline from Spain back into Portugal. On this trip, there appears to be something to rival that:

Can he actually walk across that? He'll have to see.

That bridge is on the Andorra leg of the trip. Andorra sits between Spain and France in the Pyrenees and is one of six European microstates, along with Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City. For the record, TB has been to two of the other five — Monaco and Lichtenstein.

The Barcelona portion of the trip includes, among other things, the Barcelona-Villarreal La Liga game Wednesday. TB went to the Costa Rica-El Salvador World Cup qualifier on the 2012 trip, and he imagines this will be even cooler than that was.

The team leaves Saturday, after hosting Ohio State tomorrow night at 8 on Sherrerd Field in a fall scrimmage. It's a big day of fall lacrosse, actually, as the women will host two other New Jersey school, with a game against Rutgers at 4, a game against Monmouth at 6:30 and a game between Monmouth and Rutgers in between. 

There is also, obviously, a football game on campus tomorrow night, as the Tigers host Brown. Kickoff is at 7.

The game will be Princeton Football's first "Pride Game," which will feature the national anthem by the New Jersey Gay Man's Choir and former Tiger Mason Darrow, who in 2015 became the first openly gay college football player. Darrow will be an honorary captain for the game.

You can read more about the "Pride Night" activities HERE.

Other than the football game, and the lacrosse scrimmages, it's not a huge home weekend for Princeton. The women's tennis team will be hosting the Princeton Fall Invitational beginning tomorrow and running through Sunday, and other than that, everyone else is on the road.

If you're looking for a huge Ivy matchup, it's in women's volleyball in New Haven tomorrow night, where 5-0 Princeton and 5-0 Yale meet as the final two unbeatens in the league. Win or lose, Princeton can hardly afford to take Saturday night lightly either,  as Brown is currently 4-1.

From 2009 through 2019, either Princeton or Yale or both had at least a share of the league title. Last year, though, it was Brown who won the league. This weekend will begin to sort it all out, but there is a long way to go to see who goes to the NCAA tournament.

For one, this is a double round-robin schedule to determine the championship. For another, the NCAA bid will be determined by a four-team tournament at season's end.

Princeton has had the Ivy League Rookie of the Week five times this season, with Lucia Scalamandre the honoree each of the last three times after teammate Valerie Nutakor won it twice earlier. 

There will be a soccer doubleheader at Columbia Saturday, with the men at 3 and the women at 6. Both teams in both games need a win to get back into the thick of the Ivy League race.

The women's rugby team heads to Mount St. Mary's for a game Saturday between teams who are seeking their first win. The game begins at 1 in Emmitsburg.

Also Saturday, also on the road, the field hockey team is in Cornell as the Ivy League race starts to get sorted out as well. As the league schedule reaches its midway point, Princeton and Harvard are both unbeaten, while Cornell is 2-1. Every other team has at least two losses (Cornell's loss is to Penn).

Princeton is home against Harvard a week from Sunday. TB will be coming back from Spain a day before the men's lacrosse team to be at that one.

There is also cross country tomorrow, at both Van Cortlandt Park and Wisconsin, and the men's water polo team begins its fall break trip to California Sunday. 

And that's the weekend. Princeton teams, for the most part, will need to pack a bag — some for longer and further, than others.