A Two-Title Weekend

As TigerBlog walked towards Jadwin Gym yesterday morning, he was greeted by the sight of a giant orange and black dinosaur.

For some reason, he knew exactly who was inside the costume. It had to be Kim Meszaros. By the way, if you haven't been checking out the staff directory of late, Kim is now Associate Director of Athletics for Staffing and Administration.

That's her official title. TB told her he knew it had to her because she is "the fun one."

As it turned out, Kim wasn't the only one who was dressed for the orange and black holiday. 

That's a lot of your Princeton senior athletic administration right there. This is a fun place to work, clearly.

The weekend was fun, that's for sure, as Princeton racked up its first two Ivy League championships of the fall.

It started Friday in New York City at the Ivy League Heps cross country championships, which as always is one of TB's favorite events on the calendar. One of the great traditions of Heps at Van Cortlandt Park is trying to find a place to park, something that took TB longer than either race would take.

TB stood at the races with his newest colleague, Kendall Moore, who is new to the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications. She's a recent grad of FDU, the Division III one in Florham, where she played field hockey. She also graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School, which is the same high school as what Princeton men's basketball Ivy League Player of the Year (Bob Scrabis, obviously).

The women's race was first, and the as the pack ran past on the start, pretty much all of the spectators immediately ran across the long field to get another glimpse of the runners. TB stayed where he was, as did Kendall, who was a bit surprised that everyone had vanished. 

At the end, Princeton finished second, a close second, to Harvard, by a 54-63 count. 

Next up was the men's race. Beforehand, TB was told that Harvard figured to go 1-2 in the race but that Princeton still had a great shot at the team championship. As it turned out, that was exactly what happened.

It's not always easy — actually, make that it's never easy — to figure out the team score as the runners come by at the end. It starts out simply enough, but then once they all come flying through, it's next to impossible to keep adding in your head.

Harvard did have the first two. Princeton then finished in third (Anthony Monte), fourth (Connor Nisbet), eighth (Daniel O'Brien) and ninth (Duncan Miller) before Harvard's next two were 11th and 12th. Clearly, this was close.

When would each team's fifth, and final scorer, get there? Harvard's No. 5 looked like he had a line to the finish until Princeton's Jarrett Kirk beat him after an incredible sprint for the final 25 yards or so to take 14th.

At first, it looked like Kirk had given Princeton a one-point win. As it turned out, he'd given the Tigers a three-point win, and he clinched the Heps title when he passed the 16th place runner, who finished eight seconds behind him. Still, Kirk had no way of knowing that at the time, and his finish was crazy impressive.

With that as Championship No. 1 for the year, next up was Sunday's field hockey game against Brown. Princeton went into the weekend needing either a win in one of its last two games or a Harvard loss in one of its last two games to win the Ivy title and the league's automatic NCAA bid. 

Harvard and Cornell played Saturday, and that game went into overtime before the Crimson won. TB was happy about that, because you never want to win the championship without playing.

For 30 minutes against Brown, the two highest-scoring teams in the league combined for exactly zero goals and three shots. Princeton broke through in the third quarter when Autumn Brown (on her birthday) tipped in the first goal, and then Sammy Popper sealed it with one of her own in the fourth.

The win gave Princeton its 27th Ivy League championship, as opposed to the rest of the league combined, which has 25. The Tigers return to the NCAA tournament after missing it last year; the program has not missed the NCAA tournament in consecutive years since 1992-93.

And, because Harvard won its game, Princeton got to have its spontaneous on-field celebration, complete with plenty of jubo photos. 

Next up for Princeton is the regular-season finale at Columbia and then the NCAA selections Sunday night at 10. The Tigers are very much in the mix to be one of the host sites for the first two rounds.