One Man's List Of The Top Stories In Princeton Athletics For 2022

This coming Saturday is New Year's Eve.

It's also the opening day for Ivy League basketball.

If you're in Princeton, you can see the men host Harvard at 1. If you're in Cambridge, you can see the women play at Harvard at noon. If you're nowhere near either, you can watch on ESPN+.

Being that today is Thursday, there aren't too many hours left in 2022. You've seen your share of Year in Review stories so far, TigerBlog assumes.

Today, you can see TB's review of Princeton Athletics for 2022.

First, this is 100 percent his list. It is not the "official" Princeton Athletics list. It's just TB's thoughts. Second, only accomplishments at Princeton in 2022 are included, so international and professional achievements by alums don't count for this exercise (though there were many of those).

Also, TB wrote this earlier this week: "Choosing the No. 1 moment in Princeton Athletics for TB was the easiest it's ever been." In fact, it's so easy that it gets its own separate mention tomorrow. Perhaps it's not really fair to refer to it as No. 1. TB will call it the most special moment of the year.

For today, here are TB's top 11 stories from Princeton Athletics 2022:

No. 11 - Championships and more championships, and a No. 18 finish
Princeton teams won 16 league championships in the 2022 calendar year. That's pretty impressive. Actually, it's beyond pretty impressive. To have 16 teams win their league title in one calendar year is something so rare that it may be unprecedented, or never matched again. Here are the 16 teams who did so: men's basketball, women's basketball, women's open rowing, women's fencing, women's lightweight rowing, field hockey, women's lacrosse, women's golf, men's indoor track and field, men's outdoor track and field, men's cross country, women's volleyball, men's volleyball, men's water polo, women's tennis and softball. All of these championships, and postseason participation by other teams who did not win their league title, led to an 18th place finish in the Learfield Directors' Cup, Princeton's best ever.

No. 10 - Women's rugby makes its varsity debut
The women's rugby team officially became Princeton's 38th varsity team with its first game on Sept. 3, at Sacred Heart. Erica De San Jorge scored the first varsity try in program history for head coach Josie Ziluca.

No. 9 - Women's fencing rolls
The women's fencing team went a perfect 6-0 in the Ivy League duels to win the championship. From there, the team would go on to go 1-2-3 in the foil (Maia Weintraub with the win) and 1-2 in the saber (Maia Chamberlain the winner) at the NCAA regional. After that, Princeton saw Weintraub win an NCAA championship and five fencers earn All-American honors as the Tigers finished fourth nationally in the co-ed standings.

No. 8 - Women's rowing dominates
The women's open rowers won the Ivy League first varsity 8 race by two seconds, making it five straight Ivy titles for Lori Dauphiny's team. The Tigers also won the Sally Shoemaker Trophy as the top overall points winner as well, which earned them an automatic bid to the NCAA regatta, something Princeton has never missed. Competing in Sarasota, Fla., Princeton won the varsity four race, finished third in the first varsity 8 race and finished third overall in the team points standings. The women's lightweight rowing first varsity 8 had a perfect season, including winning the IRA National Championship for the second straight year.

No. 7 - The men's lacrosse team returns to the Final Four
The men's lacrosse team missed out on the Ivy League tournament, which gave the Tigers an extra week off before the NCAA tournament. Assured of a bid after wins over NCAA seeds Georgetown, Rutgers, Penn and Brown, Princeton defeated Boston University 12-5 and Yale 14-10 to return to Championship Weekend for the first time since 2004. There, the Tigers had to wait out a four-hour rain delay before falling to Maryland 13-8, who went undefeated and won the NCAA title.

"Play hard like that.. anything can be accomplished!"

We hear you, @CoachMadalon! pic.twitter.com/uacCCIadv8

— Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) May 23, 2022

No. 6 - The wrestling team has two NCAA runners-up
Prior to the 2022 NCAA championships, the wrestling team had not had a finalist in 20 years. Princeton then had two in the 2022 tournament alone. Patrick Glory made the final at 125, where he fell 5-3 in his match, and Quincy Monday reached the final at 157, falling 9-2. The history-making performance helped the Tigers to a 16th-place finish in the team standings.

No. 5 - Sarah Fillier returns to play for Princeton after Olympic gold
Women's hockey player Sarah Fillier helped Canada to an Olympic gold medal in February (Claire Thompson, a 2020 Princeton grad, was Fillier's teammate for Canada). Fillier actually did more than just help, as she was the second-leading goal scorer in the tournament with eight, as well as three assists (Thompson had two goals and 11 assists to lead all Olympic defensemen). Fillier returned to Princeton for this season, and she currently leads the team in goals and points and is tied for the league in assists. In competing for Princeton after winning Olympic gold, Fillier joins only two other athletes who have ever done so: Bill Bradley in basketball and Ashleigh Johnson in water polo.

Pretty sure @Coach_Berube worked up a sweat...

So we were nice enough to cool her off.#GetStops | @MarchMadnessWBB pic.twitter.com/OYjpFRd6qt

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) March 19, 2022

No. 4 - The women's basketball team wins an NCAA game
Princeton raced through the Ivy League at a perfect 14-0 and then won the league tournament as well, taking the final 77-59 over Columbia after a 30-point game from Kaitlyn Chen. The Tigers, who spent much of the season in the national top 25, earned a No. 11 seed in the NCAA tournament, which meant a first-round matchup against sixth-seeded Kentucky. Abby Meyers, the Ivy League Player of the Year, then went off for 29 points as the Tigers downed the Wildcats 69-62 for the second NCAA win in program history and third ever by an Ivy team. The Tigers then came up one basket short of the Sweet 16, falling to Indiana (a team who started five 1,000-point scorers) 56-55 in the second round. Grace Stone and Julia Cunningham had 13 each as four Tigers reached double figures.

No. 3 - Chris Sailer retires after another Ivy title
The women's lacrosse team had a perfect run through the Ivy League during the regular season and then added the league tournament title at well. Princeton won its NCAA opener against UMass before falling to Syracuse in the second round. With the end of the Syracuse game came the end of Sailer's Hall-of-Fame tenure as the Tiger head coach, one that lasted 37 years and saw her go 433-168 while winning 16 Ivy League championships and three NCAA championships. Her longtime associate head coach, Jenn Cook, was named as Sailer's replacement.

No. 2 - The best Ivy League men's track and field team ever?
It's possible, likely actually, that the 2022 Princeton men's track and field team was the best the league has ever seen. Princeton won Indoor Heps by 56 points over second-place Harvard and at least 100 points over everyone else and then won Outdoor Heps by 95 points over second-place Harvard, with third-place Penn 145 points behind. If that wasn't impressive enough, Princeton sent eight athletes to the NCAA Indoor Championships, and all eight came back as All-Americans as the Tigers finished fifth nationally. Princeton then came in seventh at the Outdoor meet. Pole vaulting brothers Sondre and Simen Guttormsen finished first and fourth at both NCAA events. 

No. 1 - The death of Pete Carril
Unfortunately, even with all of the winning, the death of Hall of Fame former men's basketball coach Pete Carril in August is, in TB's estimation, the No. 1 story on this list. Carril passed away at the age of 92 on Aug. 15, after a lifetime in basketball that left a legacy few have ever matched. From the way his style of offense changed the way the game is played on every level to the way he viewed basketball, and sports in general, as an extension of a person to his persona as sociologist and philosopher, Carril is one of the most important figures in the history of Princeton University, not just athletics. A little more than a month after his death, Jadwin Gym hosted a memorial service for Carril, and it was an event that served as a statement to the importance of Princeton Basketball in the lives of those who have played here and the role that Carril played in all of their development.

 Tomorrow - the most special moment of 2022