Championship Forecast

TigerBlog was standing just outside the press box at Class of 1952 Stadium Tuesday afternoon around 4:30, or 90 minutes before the start of the Princeton-Manhattan men's lacrosse game. 

All of the sudden, the wind went from breezy to unprecedented. It whipped right across the balcony at a pace that TB had never experienced before, and it was so strong that it lifted a table up and shot it into the air before it crashed down onto the bleachers about halfway down, denting the metal seats. Eventually it made its way to the bottom of the stands, in pieces.

And just like that, the wind stopped. It was crazy. It was also fortunate, because there was nobody in the stands at the time. Had it been during the game? ... TB doesn't want to think about it. 

There were players on the field for early warmups. And people who were working. TB's colleague Cody Chrusciel was closest to where the table landed as he was setting up for the ESPN+ broadcast. For a split second, it looked like the table was going to land about 10 feet or so from where he was standing, but it never got that close. Still, it was scary stuff.

Also, shortly after that, a beautiful rainbow appeared over the scoreboard. Shelley Szwast got a perfect picture of it:

That's perfect, right? 

If you have a Princeton email, then your notifications were erupting shortly before all this happened at the possibility of a tornado. At that time, TB was in his office down in the Jadwin basement all afternoon, so he had no idea that a massive hail storm was raging outside.

And, while a tornado never actually touched down in Princeton, apparently one did strike Mercer County (Princeton's county). There was extensive damage to a condo complex called Lawrence Square Village, where TB lived back in the mid-1990s. That's about five miles or so from campus.

From the story that TB read, it was Mercer County's first tornado since 1999. When TB used to work at the Trenton Times, he remembers a discussion about why Trenton High School's teams were nicknamed "Tornadoes" when there were never tornadoes in Mercer County. 

This has been a very mild winter in Mercer County, and TB is hoping it stays that way. The high temperature for today is forecast to be near 70, and though it will cool off again after that, there is no snow or horrible cold snaps in the 10-day forecast. 

This is why you don't get your weather from a groundhog.

The forecast for this weekend does include a 100 percent chance of three more Ivy League championships to be decided, with the men's swimming and diving championships at Brown (the first events were last night) and the men's and women's indoor Heps track and field championships at Dartmouth.

The Princeton men's swimmers enter the competition ranked 24th nationally. Harvard comes in ranked 22nd. This should not be shocking if you're a fan of Ivy League men's swimming and diving.

When was the last time a team other than Princeton or Harvard won a league championship? Well, if you go by the current championship meet format that began in 1997, then the answer is never. Since then, only Princeton or Harvard has won.

If you go back further to when the round robin was used to decide the champion, then Yale got a share of the title in 1993. When was the last time that a team other than Princeton or Harvard was the outright league champion? 

That would be Penn. In 1971. That's 52 years ago. That's extraordinary.

You can get more information, including where to find schedules and results, HERE.

As for the indoor men's Heps, it's not quite 52 years, but when was the last time a team other than Princeton or Cornell won? That would be Penn as well. Back in 1997.

Princeton heads to Dartmouth looking for its eighth straight indoor Heps crown. All of the scheduling for Heps can be found HERE.

The women's side hasn't been as dominated as the men's, but it has been 10 years since a team other Harvard or Penn has won. 

It's a Championship Weekend for those three sports, and possibly men's and women's basketball. TB will have more on that possibility, as well as what's next up for Sherrerd Field, tomorrow.