Heps Champs, Again

TigerBlog was in the Schoellkopf Field pressbox during Saturday's Princeton-Cornell football game when he saw a very familiar face approach him.

It was none other than Dave Wohlhueter, or, more properly, The Legendary Dave Wohlhueter.

TB first met the Heat, as he's always been known, back in the 1980s, which shows you how long they've known each other. The Heat was the sports information director for Cornell from 1977-98, and he is a member of the CSC Hall of Fame and Cornell Hall of Fame.

Now 85 years old, he is still living his dream life. To give you an example of what that life is, this was his Saturday: 1) the first half of the game between Buffalo State-Ithaca College (he is an Ithaca alum), 2) the second half of Princeton-Cornell football, 3) dinner, 4) Cornell-Minnesota Duluth men's hockey.

It was great to see him, as it always is. Being around The Heat takes TB back to a time when the job was much different, when TB was much younger and when the Ivy League sports info ranks included great people like The Heat, Chris Humm at Brown, Kurt Kehl at Princeton, Chuck Yrigoyen at the Ivy League office, Kathy Slattery at Dartmouth, John Veneziano at Harvard and Bill Steinman at Columbia. 

As for TB, he only saw two games this weekend in person. The first was Princeton-Yale field hockey in New Haven Friday evening, when the Tigers won 2-1 in overtime to take the final spot in the Ivy tournament. 

His trip began Friday when he stopped off for breakfast with FatherBlog at FB's favorite North Jersey diner. From there, he drove over the George Washington Bridge and got on the Henry Hudson Parkway, which took him right past Van Cortlandt Park.

The weather was perfect. The grounds looked spectacular. And there was nobody there.

Had this been most years, TB would have gotten off the highway and watched the Ivy League Heptagonal cross-country championships, which would have just been getting underway.

Instead, for the second time ever, the event was being held at Franklin Park in Boston. Actually, for the men, it was the first time Heps was at Franklin Park, since the only other time Franklin Park hosted was for the 1981 women's race. 

Oh well. TB would have loved to have been there. As he's written before, most recently last week, Heps cross country is one of his favorite annual events and as big a party as there is in Ivy athletics. Seriously, if you've never been, make sure to go one of these years. 

The races in Boston saw unseasonably warm weather, which is presumably less than ideal for cross country. In fact, it's likely that the runners would have preferred rainy and 45, but what they got was sunny and 80.

As for the results, the Princeton men won again, while the Princeton women finished in second. If you're keeping score, that's 24 Ivy League men's cross country titles for Princeton, including three straight and five of the last six.

This time, the Tigers did it as the underdog. 

Harvard came into the race as the home team and more importantly as the No. 7 team in the country, while Princeton was ranked 15th. The race itself was filled with drama.

The Crimson went 1-3-5 across the line. Would that be enough? Princeton's top finisher was Nicholas Bendtsen, who finished fourth. 

After that, it was a wave of Orange and Black, as Princeton runners came home seventh (Jarrett Kirk), eighth (Connor Nisbet), 10th (Anthony Monte) and 11th (Daniel O'Brien). Would that be enough? 

As it turned out, it would. Princeton got some help from two Yale runners and two Dartmouth runners, and when Harvard's next two came home 14th and 20th, the final score was Princeton 40, Harvard 43.

Ah, to have been there trying to calculate in TB's head the numbers and then waiting for the official word, followed by what he assumes was a big-time celebration. 

It's part of what makes Heps great.

Harvard went 1-3 in the women's race as well and then followed that up with a 10-16-17 to win with 47 points. Princeton was next with 73, led by Fiona Max in seventh.

Up next is the NCAA regionals at Lehigh a week from Friday.

First Place

October ends tomorrow (candy for everyone). 

Princeton is in first place in Ivy League football. You can't really ask for much more than that.

And so what if it's a first-place tie, and so what if almost every other team is nipping at the Tigers' heels. They're here as November begins, and the goal is always to play huge games in November.

That's become the norm since Bob Surace became Tiger head coach. The 2023 season will be no different.

Princeton took down Cornell 14-3 Saturday at Schoellkopf Field. In this crazy year of Ivy football, all you can hope for is to take care of the opponent right in front of you, without looking ahead to the bigger picture. Besides, as was the case Saturday, there's a pretty good chance that the team you're facing is also right in the Ivy race.

The weekend that just passed began with a five-way tie for first place. Now it's down to two teams in first, Princeton and Harvard, who defeated Dartmouth 17-9 to also get to 3-1. 

Penn's 30-26 Friday night loss to Brown meant both of those teams are now 2-2. So is Dartmouth, after its loss, and Cornell, after its loss. And Yale, the overwhelming preseason favorite, thumped Columbia, moving the Bulldogs to 2-2 as well.

That's craziness, no? 

The funniest thing so far about the 2023 Ivy football season is that just when you're ready to write a team off, back it comes. And just when you're ready to anoint a team as the favorite, back to Earth that team comes. 

Here's another little piece of craziness.

Should Princeton win out, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. So would Harvard. And Yale. And Penn. 

That's half the league that heads into November knowing that all it has to do is win its final three games to get a ring. 

The Princeton-Cornell game Saturday was as big a game as Cornell has had in a long time. The Big Red came in after hammering Brown 36-14 a week earlier, leaving them as part of that five-way 2-1 tie at the top. 

The crowd at Schoellkopf was loud. The game started with a Cornell drive that featured three first downs and reached the Tiger 36. Each play seemed to build Cornell momentum. There had already been two third-down conversions. Would there be a third? Not on this drive. How about a fourth-down conversion? Nope. Not that either. 

Princeton went three and out on its first drive, and then Cornell got one first drive before punting on its next possession. To that point, Cornell had run 19 plays to three for the Tigers.

Ah, but that fourth play. That was something different. 

Princeton had the ball on its 23 after a punt. On the first play, Blake Stenstrom went back to pass. As he did so, TigerBlog, standing on the sideline, turned to Executive Associate AD Anthony Archbald and said "look how open he is." 

The "he" was Tamatoa Falatea, who found himself wide open behind the Cornell defense. He was so shockingly open that Blake Stenstrom probably did a double take before getting him the ball. When he did, Falatea did the rest, wisely cutting back towards the middle of the field as he neared the goal line to open more space against the Cornell defenders.

That TD made it 7-0 Tigers. There Princeton was, four offensive plays into the game, with more than the number of points it would need to win. 

Usually when that happens, the game is a blowout. Actually, with how Princeton's defense was playing, it was essentially a blowout. 

The Tigers — who had six players with between seven and nine tackles but none in double figures — completely stopped the Cornell offense, which had those 36 points a week earlier against Brown. There was no point of the game after that first drive where TB even remotely considered that the Big Red were going to get into the end zone in any way other than one big play, and that never happened.

Princeton got another touchdown late in the first half, when Luke Collela completed a 33-yard play with a nice catch in the middle of the field and then a dive into the end zone to finish, making it 14-3 at the break. That's the way it would stay.

And so you're left with Princeton and Harvard in first, with the five teams on their heels. For Princeton, next up is a Friday night game at Dartmouth, which has not been a fun place to play for the Tigers through the years. 

Of course, Princeton will be bringing its defense on the trip. 

What the Tigers showed on that side of the ball in Ithaca was, once again, extraordinary.

A Big Red Kickoff

As you know, the Ivy League football race is a tad crowded right now.

With only four weeks to play, there are five teams who are 2-1 in the league. No team is unbeaten. Two teams are 1-2. One is 0-3. 

As you probably know, only twice has a two-loss team gotten a share of the championship. The last time was in 1982. The time before that was 1963. 

In other words, it doesn't happen often.

Will it happen again this year? If you had to say yes or no, what would you say? 

TigerBlog goes back and forth. If he really had to make a prediction, he would say that no team goes 4-0 the rest of the way, which means that there will be a two-loss champ (or champs).

What that means is that the magical two-loss number doesn't mean you're necessarily eliminated. Taken a step further, that means that seven of the eight teams can still feel like they have a legitimate shot.

The eighth team? That's 0-3 Columbia, whose three losses are 10-7 to Princeton, 20-17 to Penn and 20-9 to Dartmouth. Would you think you're going to roll over the Lions if you still had them on your schedule? Of course you wouldn't.

The 2-1 teams are: Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Penn and Dartmouth. The 1-2 teams are: Brown and Yale.

This weekend's matchups are: Brown at Penn tonight and then Princeton at Cornell, Columbia at Yale and Dartmouth at Harvard tomorrow.

The big picture says that no matter what, two more teams will get their second loss this weekend. That would be the loser of Princeton-Cornell and the loser of Dartmouth-Harvard.

Also, if Brown beats Penn tonight, then that would be two losses for the Quakers as well. 

To give you an even better sense of how wild this league is, here are some comparative scores: Brown 28, Princeton 27. Cornell 36, Brown 14. Dartmouth 23, Penn 20. Cornell 23, Yale 21. Yale 31, Dartmouth 24. Princeton 21, Harvard 14.

How do you make sense of all that? 

Well, one way is to look outside the league, as weird as that might seem. When Harvard beat then-No. 5 Holy Cross and rolled out to a 5-0 record, it looked like the Crimson were the clear favorites. When Lafayette beat Princeton on Powers Field, it looked like it wasn't quite Princeton's year. 

Then TB wrote this: If Lafayette wins its next game, then the game against Princeton will have a slightly different feeling to it. That next game was Holy Cross, and the Leopards in fact won that game, ending the Crusaders' long Patriot winning streak. 

Now all of the sudden, Princeton has a win over Harvard and a lot of momentum as it heads to Ithaca. So too does the Big Red after the hurting it put on Brown last week, one week after the Bears beat Princeton.

In other words, predictions? Why bother?

Do the stats say anything? 

Princeton has the nation's No. 1 rush defense, allowing 72.2 yards per game. A week ago, Princeton held Harvard, a team that came in with a run-first offense that gained 262 per game on the ground, to 68. That's nearly 200 fewer than the Crimson were averaging.

Cornell, on the other hand, is fifth in the league at 116.3 per game. Of those 116.3, the Big Red get a team-best 44.8 of them from quarterback Jameson Wang. Last week's challenge was stopping Harvard QB Charles DiPrima, who was the league rushing leader. DiPrima had 10 yards on the ground. 

Harvard's top two rushers, DiPrima and Shane McLaughlin, are the top two rushers in the league (DiPrima is now No. 2). In Wang's case, he throws it way more than DiPrima, partly because of game plan and partly because of game situation. 

Last week, Wang had five carries for 22 yards against Brown. He also completed 27 of 39 passes for 330 yards and two TDs. If he matches those numbers this week, that would not be ideal for the Tigers. 

Princeton has played six games to date. In only one of them has the final margin been greater than one score, and that was a nine-point win over San Diego in the season-opener. The last five weeks have seen Princeton play games decided by three (in OT), three (winning TD with less than two minutes left), three, one (in OT) and then seven (winning TD with less than two minutes left). 

It's been that kind of year, for Princeton and the rest of the league.

Why would this game be any different?

Princeton vs. Princeton In The World Series

TigerBlog can't remember a sporting event in which his rooting interest was so conflicted as it was this past week.

No, he's not talking about any Princeton games. He's not even talking about the Giants-Washington game Sunday. There was a time when that would have been a huge day for TB and his mother, whose favorite athlete ever was John Riggins while TB was a huge Giants fan.

In most of the years since her death, TB was always torn for those two games each year, sort of as an homage to his mother's team. These days, though, he roots against the Giants, because they got rid of Marc Ross and Jason Garrett, and those are red lines you can't cross with TB.

The event he's talking about was Game 7 of the National League Championship Series between Arizona and Philadelphia. 

On the one hand, TB is a Phillies' fan. For one thing, his son is a huge fan of the team. And hey, TB himself was once a vendor at Veterans Stadium in a season (1983) that ended with a World Series (Baltimore defeated Philadelphia).

Then there is Tom McCarthy, the play-by-play man for the Phils. TB roots for him, and for the Reds, because of John Sadak, another former Princeton announcer-turned-MLB announcer.

Lastly, the Phillies come across as a pretty fun group. They seem to really love playing together. And before the series began, TB couldn't name anyone on the Diamondbacks.

Other than the general manager, of course. And therein was the problem.

The Arizona GM is Mike Hazen, a former Princeton baseball outfielder. How could TB possibly root against Hazen? 

He certainly had no such dilemma in the American League. He was all-in on Texas, who beat Houston in seven games — in a series in which the road team won all seven games. 

In fact, between the two series, the home team was 3-11, including 0-6 in Games 5 through 7.

Texas, as you probably know, also has a Princeton alum as a general manager, Chris Young. It also has a Princeton alum as its associate manager, Will Venable, who like Young played baseball and basketball at Princeton and was first-team All-Ivy in both.

So that sets up a Princeton vs. Princeton World Series that begins tomorrow night in Texas (did Arizona decline home field?). Interestingly, the three Tiger alums were never teammates, as Hazen graduated in 1998, a year before Young started, and Young left in 2000 to turn pro (finishing his Tiger degree on time and writing his senior thesis on buses in the Minor Leagues), while Venable first came to Princeton in 2001 (and didn't play baseball as a freshman).

Hazen was a two-time first-team All-Ivy League centerfielder, in 1997 and 1998. In fact, Hazen was the first player to play for Scott Bradley at Princeton to earn first-team All-Ivy honors, since Hazen's senior year was Bradley's first as Tiger head coach.

Hazen hit .333 for his Tiger career, which ties him for 14th-best in program history with — Venable. In fact, the two had fairly similar numbers during their time as Tigers, with better power numbers for Venable and more overall hits for Hazen.

Venable was also a 1,000-point man in basketball, which is pretty good, considering he was always considered more of a defensive stopper than scorer. TigerBlog isn't sure Venable would have made it in the NBA, but he did see Venable outplay a lot of guys who did in big games. As it turned out, Venable had a nine-year Major League career before getting into coaching.

As for Young, he would have been a 1,000-point scorer, or maybe even a 2,000-point scorer, but his basketball career ended after his sophomore year when he was drafted and signed with the Pirates. Had he chosen to stay with basketball, Young almost surely would have had a long NBA career, perhaps even as long as the 13 years he pitched in the Majors.

Young is the only Princeton pitcher in the last 50 years to have at least five decisions in a season without losing game.

And now, they're all meeting up in the World Series. As TB has written before, this is a statement on what Bradley instills in his player as much as anything else.

For whom will TB be rooting? This time it's easy.

Princeton. 

Boston Heps

TigerBlog's Friday was set up perfectly.

Long, but perfectly.

Heps cross country in the morning at Van Cortlandt Park. Princeton-Yale field hockey at 5 in New Haven. 

He would even throw in breakfast at the diner with FatherBlog. And yes, that means having to drive him around on his errands, but hey, he's 88, so why not?

And then? He learned that Heps is not Friday at Van Cortlandt Park but Saturday in Boston. 

What? So now it'll just be the diner, the errands and the field hockey game.

The Ivy League men's cross country champion has been crowned at the Heptagonal race since 1939, with the exception of 1944 and 1945 during World War II and then in 2020 due to Covid. 

From that first year through 1978, each Heps championship meet was held at Van Cortlandt Park, which TB should have mentioned by now is in the Bronx. Was the 1939 meet like the contemporary ones, with its team tents all lined up along the finish area and alums who flocked to see it all?

The women's Heps dates to 1977, but it was a separate event for the first three years, first in New Haven, and then Ithaca and Philadelphia the following two years. The 1979 men's race was in Bethlehem, Pa., at Saucon Valley Golf Club, and then the two races  were first held at the same venue together in 1980. 

That venue? Van Cortlandt Park.

The women ran in 1981 at Franklin Park in Dorcester, Mass., before returning the following year to rejoin the men at Van Cortlandt Park. The race never moved from there again until 2011, when it was first held at Princeton's West Windsor Fields. Perhaps the forces of the universe didn't agree with that move — that 2011 race famously was held during a late October blizzard in Princeton.

The next 10 Heps saw Princeton host seven and three return to Van Cortlandt Park. And now, this Saturday, it returns to that same Franklin Park.

TigerBlog isn't sure where the course is set, but there is a zoo in Franklin Park that has both a "Lions Den" and a "Tigers Tale." Is that a good omen for Columbia and Princeton? 

The national women's rankings include only one Ivy school, and that is Harvard, who is 26th. Regionally, Penn is third and Princeton is sixth in the Mid-Atlantic Region, while over in the Northeast Region, Harvard is No. 1, followed by No. 8 Columbia, No. 11 Dartmouth and No. 13 Yale. 

On the men's side, there are two teams in the national rankings, the top 15, actually. Harvard comes in at No. 7. Princeton is at No. 15. Both teams made big jumps last week.

Villanova and Princeton are 1-2 in the Mid-Atlantic rankings this week, with Penn at No. 7. Harvard is behind Syracuse in the Northeast Region, followed by No. 5 Yale, No. 7 Cornell, No. 10 Columbia and No. 11 Dartmouth.  

That's a lot of high quality Ivy League cross country teams.

By the way, the same school is ranked No. 1 in both the women's and men's national poll. Can you name it? 

The women's race will be held at 11 Saturday, followed at noon by the men's race. 

TB's colleague Joey Maruschak will be covering those two races and then taking the short trip over to Harvard, where Princeton will be playing men's soccer at 1. If you're going to be in the area, you should do the same.

TB won't be there, sadly. Heps cross country is one of his favorite annual events on the Ivy League calendar, and he hasn't missed many in the last 30 years or so.  

Some Ivy League championships take months to play out. Getting off to a slow start can be overcome. A key injury here or an unlucky bounce there doesn't doom the entire season.

In Ivy League cross country, the championship season comes and goes in just a few minutes. You have to be ready on that day, for that course. That's part of its lure. That's part of its challenge as well. That's part of why it's such a great event.

That, and the party atmosphere that exists on the grounds before, during and after the race. TB will be missing it.

And the No. 1 team in both polls? That's Northern Arizona. 

Picture Perfect

TigerBlog has a new hobby — photography.

Here's a shot he took the other day with his iPhone: 

What do you think? Not too bad, right? 

Okay, okay. That isn't TB's shot, and that wasn't taken with an iPhone. Perhaps credit should actually go where it belongs:

Soham Bhattacharyya has been named overall winner of this year's Mangrove Photography Awards, for his image of an endangered tigress in the Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve, India.

That is a great shot. Look how beautiful the Tiger is. Look how still it is. Who couldn't like that picture (other than, maybe, Harvard's football team this week)? 

How close did Soham actually have to be to the Tiger to take that? What kind of lens was used? 

What did the Tiger do in the next few seconds? Hopefully for Soham's sake it didn't look anything like this: 

You saw this picture in yesterday's TigerBlog. It was taken during Saturday's 21-14 Princeton win over Harvard.

Those Tigers are Liam Johnson and Ozzie Nicholas, and there's nothing still or peaceful about them when they're on the football field. Between them they have 111 tackles through six games. The next best total by a pair of teammates? Here's the complete list of other Ivy League teammates who combined have at least 100 tackles this season: _______________________.

In case you didn't get it, that means no other duo has at least 100. Johnson and Nicholas have 111.

That photo from the other day was taken by the great Shelley Szwast, who has taken so many great Tiger photos over the years, though not in a mangrove. That picture from the Harvard game is one of her best in that it tells the entire story of the game in that one shot. 

That's what great pictures can do. Princeton is fortunate to have Shelley, Greg Carroccio and Ryan Sansom behind the lens for many of its games. 

When TB first started here, the only need for photography was to make sure there were enough pictures for the following year's media guide (those were pre-season printed publications that were obsolete after one game, for those under 30). The NCAA rules required the insides to be black-and-white, with only cover on the inside and outside covers, so the overwhelming majority of photos from back then are in black-and-white. 

And they were actual photos, not electronic versions. There was film that went in the camera (as opposed to an SD card), and that film had to be developed at a photo shop, as opposed to working in PhotoShop. It was all pretty expensive. 

Today? There is no limit to the use of good photos, most especially on social media. The demand is great, which is why, as TB said, having quality photographers is a must.

And then there's TB, whose actual photography hobby is in its infancy. He did shoot the Princeton field hockey game at Brown and got a solid B- or so in that he had some usable photos but deleted maybe eight of 10 he took. 

He also tried against this past Saturday at Dartmouth. This time, it was in the pouring rain in Hanover, and his best picture was probably one he took of the inside of his umbrella. Or there was also one he took of the sky, when he actually thought he was pointing the camera at the field. 

Okay, everyone has to start somewhere. He'll be back at it again Friday in New Haven, for the field hockey game at 5 against Yale to decide the final Ivy tournament spot. 

Who knows, maybe if he keeps at it, he'll end up being as good at photography as he is at golf (which if you're a longtime reader, you know he's bad at golf). Actually, this is one sidelight he might be able to practice and, ultimately, become a reasonable photographer. 

His goal for the Yale game is to get at least one picture that tells the story of the game. You can check out the webpage and the field hockey social media after the game to see how he does.

By the way, if you want to see other great shots from the mangrove photo contest, click HERE.

Ivy Football Chaos

 

A game, once it is lost, can never be gotten back. 

The Princeton football team spent a week chewing on that reality after its brutal 28-27 loss at Brown in overtime and then took all of that frustration out on unbeaten Harvard. After the Tigers' 21-14 win Saturday on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, you can make that "previously" unbeaten Harvard.

This was an epic performance by the Princeton defense. Harvard came into the game averaging 262 rushing yards per game, turning that into 41 points per game and a 5-0 record.

Would that attack steamroll Princeton? Would the Tigers still be trying to figure out how a two-touchdown lead got away in Providence? Whatever would happen, this game would be the most important game in the league, probably for the entire season. 

If Harvard won, the Crimson would be in the driver's seat, and Princeton would all but be eliminated. The rest of the league would clearly be chasing an unbeaten team that was starting to look invincible.

If Princeton won? Well, you'd have what it is you actually have today, which is an Ivy League that is completely wide open, unpredictable and very likely headed to its most dramatic November in a long, long time.

How crazy is the league? There are now five teams tied for first at 2-1 (Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn), with two 1-2 teams (Yale, Brown) and one 0-3 team (Columbia, who very easily could be 2-1 also). No opponent is a layup. Every game is a toss-up. 

If you go back to the very beginning of the Ivy League, only twice has a team with two league losses gotten a share of the championship. It hasn't happened since 1982. This year? It seems almost certain to be the case.

Well, maybe "certain" is the wrong word. After all, this year is one big Ivy football uncertainty. There is one thing that's definite, though: There will be either two or three one-loss teams after this coming weekend, since Princeton is at Cornell and Dartmouth is at Harvard. The other league games are Brown at Penn (that's a Friday night game) and Columbia at Yale.

Hey, it's not stretching things outrageously to say that by every team could have two league losses by the end of Week 8. 

All of that, though, is for later in the week. First, there's the matter of Princeton's takedown of Harvard.

There were so many subplots/numbers/turning points:

* Harvard came into the game with all of those rushing yards, and then Princeton allowed just one in the first half and just 68 for the day. How? Because Princeton is a team with great linebackers and great tacklers. 

* A Princeton offensive line that was missing two injured starters did not allow a sack. 

* Princeton went up 14-0 and held that lead until late in the third quarter. In a blink, Harvard put together back-to-back 10-play touchdown drives, tying it at 14-14. Stunningly, for the second straight week, a two-touchdown lead had gotten away. What was going through the minds of every Princeton player? Here we go again? Or no way, we're not letting this happen again? 

* Harvard had punted 15 times in its first five games and then punted 10 times against Princeton. There were 19 total punts in the game, and the 18th was one of the two biggest plays of the game, as Brady Clark's 51-yard punt that rolled dead on the 3 yard line forced the Crimson into awful field position midway through the fourth quarter. Princeton's defense got a stop, and the Tigers took over on the Harvard 45 to start the winning drive. 

* The other biggest play of the game came when Blake Stenstrom connected with Luke Colella for 18 yards on a third-and-9 to keep the game-winning drive alive. The winning points came on a 10-yard Stenstrom pass to Connor Hulstein. How unlikely a hero was Hulstein? The junior came into the game with one career reception and then had two against the Crimson, including the winning TD with less than two minutes to go.

* Ozzie Nicholas is, well, he's worth watching on every play. The Ivy League's leading tackler had 10 more against the Crimson, including a big-time sack on Harvard quarterback Charles DiPrima after the Hulstein touchdown. The game ended with a Will Perez interception on the next play. DiPrima, who came in as the league's leading rusher, had 17 carries for 10 yards (sacks count as negative rushing yards) and also completed 15 of 37 passes for 154 yards with three picks.

* That's six straight wins over Harvard for Princeton. The last time there was a streak this long? How about 1947-53.

You can exhale now after this past weekend, but not for too long. The next four games are coming up, and they will again turn the league race in some unforeseen and unpredictable direction.

So there you have it. 

Chaos in the Ivy League.

Kicking Off With The Crimson

The Ivy League football standings are pretty interesting right now.

You have one 2-0 team (Harvard). You have one 0-2 team (Columbia). You have six 1-1 teams. 

Also, you have six weeks of the season to go, with nothing but league games left to be played. 

Princeton has had to wait a long week to get back at it, after its tough 28-27 overtime loss to Brown last Saturday in Providence. The Tigers get back at it tomorrow at 1, when they kick off against that lone unbeaten, the Crimson.

If there's been one constant to this season, it's been that the forecast in the beginning of the week has called for rain. All week long, it's said there's a chance of rain, like a 70 percent chance of rain. That's been the case every Saturday.

Ah, but the hourly forecast now suggests that the rain will end well before the 1 pm kickoff, just like it did for the Lafayette game. So get there, plan your tailgate and watch one of college football's oldest rivalries. 

You'll note that TigerBlog said one of the oldest (the first meeting between the schools was in 1877). It's not one of the most played. 

Princeton and Harvard, in fact, meet for the 115th time, which is a mere 30 fewer times than Princeton has played Yale. Why is that? It's because tensions between Princeton and Harvard flared mightily in the 1800s, and the schools dropped each other after a near-riot in 1896.  

The series resumed in 1911, just in time for Harvard to have to line up against Hobey Baker. The teams didn't play again between 1927 and 1933; during all of that time, Princeton ended its season almost every year against Yale. In fact, one condition of restarting the series with Harvard was that Yale could continue to play its final game of the season against Harvard and, well, you know what happened there. 

By the way, here's a little trivia question for you: The three most-played rivalries in college football are Lafayette-Lehigh, Princeton-Yale and Harvard-Yale. What is fourth and fifth on that list (hint, No. 4 is an FCS rivalry and No. 5 is the most-played FBS rivalry). 

TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs.

In the meantime, he'll talk about AJ Barber. The Princeton junior wide receiver has put up these numbers so far this year:

Weeks 1-3: eight catches, 84 yards
Week 4 vs. Lafayette: seven catches, 156 yards
Week 5 vs. Brown: eight catches, 142 yards, one touchdown

In fact, for his career prior to the Lafayette game, Barber had 329 receiving yards and one TD. Now he has 298 more yards with another TD in two games.

Barber ranks fourth in the Ivy League in receiving yards per game and eighth in total receptions. He's up to 26th in receiving yards per game in the FCS, and that's after averaging 28 yards per game the first three weeks. That's called heating up.

Oh, and as for the trivia answer, No. 4 is William & Mary-Richmond, who play for the Capital Cup, and No. 5 is Wisconsin-Minnesota, who play for Paul Bunyan's Ax.

Meanwhile, back at the Princeton-Harvard game, the Crimson have the No. 1 scoring offense in the Ivy League and the No. 1 rushing offense in the Ivy League. In the FCS, those numbers are sixth and third.

Princeton, on the other hand, ranks second in the Ivy League in scoring defense and first in rushing defense. Nationally, they are third and second in those two categories. 

Harvard averages 41 points per game. Princeton allows 15 per game. Those are wildly dissimilar numbers.

Princeton has won the last five in the series. The last time Princeton went that long without losing to Harvard was 1977-81, when the Tigers were 3-0-2. The last time Princeton won at least five straight against Harvard? That was 1947-53.

Those rather symmetrical Ivy standings will have a shakeup this weekend. In addition the Princeton-Harvard game, you also have Columbia at Dartmouth, Penn at Yale and Brown at Cornell. 

No matter what, things will look a bit different come tomorrow night. 

Of course, for Princeton, any football game against Harvard is special.

Thursday Catch Up

If it's Thursday, it must be time to catch up on some things:

* Yes, it's not even Halloween yet, but you can see what figures to be a great matchup in women's hockey at Baker Rink tomorrow night. Princeton, who opened its season with a sweep of Robert Morris last weekend, hosts Yale at 6 in the first game of the season for the Bulldogs. After that, it'll be Princeton-Brown Saturday at 6 at Baker Rink.

The Bulldogs come off a season in which they went 28-4-1, and they are picked second in the ECAC preseason poll. The team is led by goalie Pia Dukaric, who plays for the Slovenian national team and who was named the most outstanding goalie at the 2023 World Championships.

Princeton outscored Robert Morris 10-2 in last weekend's sweep. The Tigers, obviously, are led by Sarah Fillier, who is the third Princeton athlete ever to win an Olympic gold medal and then come back and compete for the Tigers, joining Bill Bradley and Ashleigh Johnson. 

* TigerBlog took a long walk yesterday around the campus. When it is empty here, as it is this week because of fall break, it is very, very quiet, eerily so almost.

* The four fall Ivy League tournament races are reaching their critical moments, with only two weekends left for field hockey and women's soccer and three for men's soccer. The women's volleyball race has just passed the midway point.

TigerBlog will start with women's volleyball. 

Right now, Yale is 7-0, with Princeton and Brown with two losses, Harvard with three and everyone else with four or more. While the other six teams all have a single match this weekend against their travel partners, Princeton and Penn (1-7) are off, since they already played their home-and-home earlier in the year. 

* If it's already women's hockey season, then basketball season can't be far behind. The Ivy League released its preseason polls this week, with the Princeton men picked to finish second and the women a unanimous choice for No. 1. 

What does this mean? Nothing, obviously. 

What matters most in a college basketball season is how a team progresses. Everyone knows where the Tigers finished last year — both teams — but the road is long and there are hurdles along the way. 

Preseason polls are fun. So is the coming of the season. March? That's a long, long way off. 

* All eight Ivy men's soccer teams have played four of their seven league games to date. Right now, first place to seventh place is separated by just four points (three points for a win, one for a tie).

Where does that leave Princeton? The Tigers have four points at 1-2-1 in the league as they prepare to host Brown this weekend (4, Saturday). The Bears are currently 1-0-3, which gives them six points. That's two more than Princeton, but the Bears are four spots ahead in the standings.

Obviously a lot will happen between now and the Ivy tournament. Princeton finishes the league season with games at Harvard (currently in first with eight points) and Penn (one point ahead of Princeton as part of the three-way tie for fourth).

* For tennis fans, the ITA Super Regionals for the men will be held at Princeton this weekend, starting tomorrow and running through Monday. Check the website for schedules, and if there is rain, locations. 

* TigerBlog didn't realize this until he saw it on X, but Princeton alum Tyler Lussi — the all-time leading scorer in soccer at Princeton for women and men — has five game-winning goals this season for the NC Courage in the NWSL. 

In fact, she's scored the only goal in five different 1-0 wins. That's, um, really impressive. 

* Speaking of women's soccer, Princeton has two league games left, at Dartmouth Saturday (3) and home against Columbia next Saturday. The Tigers are currently 3-1-1 in the league, tied with Harvard for second place (they've both lost to Brown and tied each other).

The Tigers are Crimson sit five points behind first-place Brown, who would host the Ivy tournament with one point in their final two games (Cornell and Dartmouth). The fourth spot is currently held by the Big Green, who have eight points, and then fifth place is held by Columbia with five points.

Should Princeton get a win or tie this weekend or should Columbia or tie in its game against Yale, it would clinch a spot in the league tournament. The same is true of Harvard. 

* Speaking of Dartmouth, the field hockey team will be heading south on I-91 when the women's soccer game starts Saturday. The Tigers' game against the Big Green in field hockey begins at 11 am. 

Depending on the outcome of the Yale-Columbia game tomorrow, then Princeton will either be in the Ivy tournament with a win (and a Columbia win) or will be playing a game that has no impact on the Ivy tournament (with a Yale win). 

Should the Bulldogs win their game, then the Princeton-Yale game next Friday would be a de-facto tournament play-in game, with the winner to join Harvard, Penn and Cornell. The Princeton-Dartmouth game in that case wouldn't matter, win or lose. 

* Lastly, TigerBlog wishes all of the best to Meg Moore and Derek Griesdorn as they tie the knot Saturday. Derek is a universally well-loved member of the equipment staff, and Meg used to work at the Ivy League office. Hopefully the honeymoon lasts forever — though TB will still be needing Meg to help with stats at lacrosse this spring.

Traveling Tigers

When TigerBlog's colleagues Kim Meszaros and Karen Malec left on their respective international trips with the Princeton women's lacrosse and Princeton women's squash teams, he wished them good times, good weather and good food.

The women's lacrosse team is currently in Italy for its fall break. The women's squash team also is in Europe, in their case in Portugal. 

Before they left, the weather forecasts weren't great. Judging by what TB has seen on social media, so far at least the teams have been met with blue skies.

The women's lacrosse team was at Pompeii yesterday. That, of course, is the site of the famous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. From what TB could see, the weather was perfect.

Also, it appears that, not shockingly, there have been carbs on the trip as well. Kim posted on her own social media that there was a pizza-making class, and she smiled as she displayed the final product.

The women's squash team, from their own Instagram story, spent the day at a training session in Lisbon and then seemed to be having salads for lunch. Again, the weather seemed to be cooperating.

It's already Wednesday, which means that the trips are already in their mid-point. They certainly fly by. 

TigerBlog has been on four of these international trips. They are remarkable opportunities for the players, and everyone else who goes, to have an amazing group experience that brings them closer together and also gives them a week that they'll never forget. 

There are cultural events. There are social events. There are service events. There are sporting events. There is practice and competition. And it's all packed into a week, far from home.

What more could you ask for if you were a college athlete? 

The NCAA permits teams to make these trips once every four years. At this time last year, TB was with the men's lacrosse team in Andorra and Spain. 

The best way to keep up with these teams is through their Instagram pages, both the teams and the individual athletes. In many ways, it's like you're there with them. You can certainly see what a great experience they're all having. Those who have made it possible are owed a huge thank you.

The Princeton campus this week is relatively quiet, as most students are home for the break. Fall and winter teams are practicing and competing, of course.

Not every team who flew somewhere headed east. In the case of the men's water polo team, they went west, to spend the week in California. 

Princeton is currently ranked sixth in the country in men's water polo. The program, which reached the NCAA quarterfinals last year, is in a phenomenal place, literally and figuratively. The figurative part is that Princeton is an established national power. The literal part is California, where the best teams are located.

So far on the trip, Princeton has defeated UC Irvine (ranked ninth) and UC Santa Barbara (ranked 10th). Today's challenge? That would be at No. 1 UCLA, at 9 Eastern time tonight. 

The Tigers will have a day off tomorrow and then play four more times at the Santa Clara Invitational, where they will take on three more ranked California squads: No. 15 Pacific, No. 12 San Jose State and No. 5 Pepperdine. They will also take on Division II Fresno Pacific before flying home. 

After the Tigers return home, they have two more regular season weekends, with matches at Brown, Harvard and MIT next weekend and then home matches against LIU and Iona at DeNunzio Pool Nov. 4. Beyond that is the Northeast Water Polo Conference tournament, which will be held at Harvard Nov. 17-19 and which will decide the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid.

For now, though, it's spring break. From where the women's lacrosse and squash teams are to where the men's water polo team is, that's about a 7,000-mile distance. 

These are weeks that these traveling Tigers will always remember.

Pro Tigers

At one point maybe two years ago, TigerBlog walked into Jadwin Gym and saw someone at the three-point line of the side court lob a basketball, have it bounce off the floor and then catch it and reverse dunk it.

That person? Andrei Iosivas.

There is no sport at which Iosivas would not have excelled. TB would love to have seen him as a shortstick defensive midfielder in lacrosse, or a striker in soccer, or really anything else. Maybe not hockey. Do they ice in Hawaii?

Iosivas, of course, competed in football and track and field at Princeton and was an All-American in both. From Day 1 of watching him in football it was obvious that the only thing that would hold him back from the NFL was if he wanted to devote himself to becoming an Olympic decathlete.

Iosivas was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals last spring, and he was wildly impressive in training camp and the preseason. As the season has progressed, he's gotten more and more playing time, and this past Sunday he caught his first NFL touchdown pass.

It came from Joe Burrow, who made sure Iosivas got to keep the ball. TB has no inside information on this, but just judging from the way Iosivas' teammates react to him in social media and on TV, Iosivas is a wildly popular Bengal.

Not that this is surprising news. Anyone who has ever met him and spoken with him can tell you that this is one easy guy to root for, and it was with that background that every Princeton fan was thrilled to see him get on the scoreboard for the first time — though TB would guess not the last.

Iosivas joins other recent Princeton grads Jesper Horsted and Stephen Carlson in hauling in NFL touchdown receptions. That's the kind of thing you get say you did forever, by the way. 

Elsewhere in the world of professional Tigers, there are the two league championship series in Major League Baseball. You have Princetonians in both.

In the American League, the Texas Rangers defeated the Houston Astros twice in Houston to make it halfway to the World Series, while the Arizona Diamondbacks took on the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 last night.

TigerBlog knew that Chris Young was the general manager for the Rangers. That's the same Chris Young who was a dominant basketball center and baseball pitcher at Princeton, the same Chris Young who had a 13-year MLB career and could have had an NBA career of a similar length.

What TB didn't realize was that another Princeton basketball/baseball alum, Will Venable, is also a key member of the Rangers. Venable, who was a Major League outfielder for nine seasons, is the associate manager for the Rangers.

That's two first-team All-Ivy Princeton men's basketball players (who were also first-team All-Ivy in baseball) who are playing huge roles in a team that is hoping to reach the World Series one year after going 68-94.

How did TB find out about Venable, who is in his first year in Texas? That information came from John Nolan, who briefly did some broadcast work for Princeton and who has established himself as a rising star in the business through his work in Minor League Baseball, college basketball and the G-League in Fort Wayne. 

Don't be shocked to see Nolan work his way up to join other former Tiger broadcasters like Tom McCarthy, John Sadak and Patrick McCarthy on Major League broadcasts.

Meanwhile, in the National League, the Diamondbacks' general manager is another former Princeton athlete (though not a basketball player as well), Mike Hazen. Arizona last year was 74-88.

No matter what, this is all part of Scott Bradley's legacy as Princeton's baseball coach. His love for the game and his passion for playing it the right way carries over to his players, and they take that with them when they leave. Most don't get the chance to play in the Majors, but many have.

The Phillies are a tough team to beat this time of year. They're also a fun team to support. 

Still, it's as long as there is a chance for Princeton vs. Princeton in the World Series, how can you not want to see that happen?

 

Football Monday

Welcome to the world, Michael Croxton.

Though he wasn't due to make an appearance until this week, Michael checked in a few days early, joining his mother Michelle, father Warren and oldest sister Theresa Friday. 

When Warren told TigerBlog that he'd named his son "Michael," TB was a bit surprised. He figured it would be more like "Bryce Harper Nick Foles Croxton," and his nickname would be 41-33. 

They can still call him that. 

Warren, in addition to being one of the biggest Philadelphia sports fans TB has ever met (he's probably in the top three), is a member of the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications staff.

Ah, the birth of a child. People say it's the greatest of days — eclipsed only on that magical day where your youngest is financially independent. 

TB's kids are in their mid-20s now. Anytime someone he knows has a baby, he thinks back to when they were born, and also to the overwhelming challenge that is taking care of a newborn. Your second, and presumably any subsequent ones, are rougher; just when you thought you were done with diapers and car seats, here you go again.

Now that Warren is a father of two, TB says "Mazel Tov" to the Croxtons on the arrival of the new one. And better them than he.

TB texted his best to Warren and asked if he'd be watching the Princeton-Brown football game a few hours after his son's birth. The answer was that he'd probably have it on.

Warren, after all, is the OAC football contact. 

The game he watched was a rough one for Princeton fans, as Brown rallied from two touchdowns down in the fourth quarter to win 28-27 in overtime. The loss was Princeton's first in the league after opening with a win over Columbia.

There are football games like this. Princeton appeared in control, shutting down Brown's high-scoring offense after allowing a TD on the first drive. The Tigers, in turn, got three very different touchdowns of their own — first a 37-yard Jiggie Carr run during which he seemed stopped for a loss, then a gorgeous 45-yard pass and catch from Blake Stenstrom to AJ Barber and lastly a bruising one-yard run by John Volker. 

Yes, but being up 21-7 in the fourth quarter of a football game is much like being up two goals in the third period of a hockey game. You're in control, sort of — but as soon as the other team scores once, suddenly your comfort zone is gone, the other team has momentum and now you feel like all the pressure is on you. 

And that's exactly what happened. Brown scored. Got a stop it needed. Got another score. Two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Two long drives. Overtime.

The league standings now have Harvard at 2-0, six teams at 1-1 and Columbia at 0-2. To show you how the league is this year, Columbia lost to Princeton 10-7 after the Tigers had that incredible drive for the winning points late in the game and then 20-17 to Penn Saturday after leading 17-10 in the fourth quarter. 

That's how slim the difference between 2-0 and 0-2 is. Imagine how much fun it would be if there was an Ivy League football tournament this year with the top four teams.

Of course there isn't. What there is, though, is a major chance at redemption this Saturday for the Tigers, when they host Harvard on Homecoming Day (kickoff at 1).

Harvard has certainly looked good to date. The Crimson are 5-0 overall, with its most impressive win the one over Holy Cross, who was ranked in the top five in the FCS at the time. 

In the league Harvard has taken down Brown 34-31 and Cornell 41-23. Again, that's a three-point win over a Brown team who could be saying both "hey, we could be 2-0" and "hey, we could be 0-2."

It's that kind of year in Ivy League football. 

It was a long bus ride home from Providence for the Tigers. Once they got back, though, it was time to turn the page. There's no getting that game back. Now there's only the chance to make up for it this coming weekend.

Kicking Off At Brown

TigerBlog received messages with two more names to add to his "best of post-Princeton" list:

Cosmo Iacavazzi and Matt Striebel.

Iacavazzi, of course, is one of the all-time greatest Princeton football players who went on to play for the Jets when they were still in the old American Football League. 

As for Striebel, TB mentioned him in the story but didn't include him on the list, though Striebel very much belongs on it after having one of the greatest professional and international lacrosse careers any player has ever had. Striebel also has to be one of the very, very, very few college athletes to have scored goals in the NCAA tournament in two different sports (lacrosse, soccer).

Are there any more names out there? Just let TB know.

Meanwhile, the current iteration of Iacavazzi's team is about to start its sprint to the finish line with the first of six straight Ivy League games. That run starts tomorrow, when the Tigers kick off at Brown at noon.

There are two league games and four non-league games this weekend, with Penn at Columbia the other Ivy matchup. By late afternoon tomorrow, each league team will have played two league games.

The only guarantees are that there will be at least one team that is 2-0 and definitely one team that will be 0-2. Depending on the results, there could be another 2-0 team and another 0-2 team, or there could be six 1-1 teams.

Harvard, already 2-0, hosts Howard tomorrow. Columbia and Penn both lost their Ivy openers, so the loser of that game tomorrow will be 0-2. 

Yale, Dartmouth and Cornell are all 1-1, and they'll be joined by the winner of Penn-Columbia. Should Princeton win tomorrow, then it would also be 2-0 and Brown would be 0-2. If Brown wins, then that sets up the six-way tie at 1-1, behind Harvard, who is at Princeton a week from tomorrow. 

Clearly, there is a lot on the line with every Ivy game. For Princeton, the most immediate challenge will be taking on one of the best offenses in the FCS. At the same time, the most immediate challenge for Brown will be taking on one of the best defenses in the FCS.

Brown averages 444.8 yards per game of offense, which is the 10th-best in the FCS. Princeton allows 211.8 yards per game, which is No. 1 in the FCS.

Looking a little deeper, Brown gets 346.2 through the air, which is the best in the country. That's just about 80 percent of its offense that comes in the passing game. 

Princeton's pass defense is just a hair behind its run defense. The Tigers are No. 1 in the FCS, allowing 66.2 yards per game on the ground, while they are also sixth in the FCS in pass defense, at 145.5.

Added all up, and Brown averages 33 points per game, while Princeton allows 11.8. Brown has scored at 29, 31, 42 and 30 points in its four games; Princeton has allowed 12, 16, 10 and 12 in its four games.

As for the "hidden yards," Brown has committed fewer penalties per game than any other FCS team. The Bears also have only lost one fumble, but that's a function of how little they run the ball. 

The Tigers have won the last six games in the series, including a 35-19 win a year ago in Princeton. The Tigers have averaged an impressive 48 points per game against Brown during the six-game winning streak. 

The best pregame news for Princeton could be the weather. The rain was listed as probable all week in Providence, before being downgraded to questionable. Right now, it looks like it'll be 65 and clear at kickoff, which means that the Tigers will not have to deal with rain and wind for the first time since the game in San Diego to start the year. 

Princeton is 2-2 for the first time since 2014. For each of the last four years, Princeton went into this week with a 4-0 record. 

The key number is 1-0, though. As TB said, the Ivy race will be shuffled each week, and no results can be taken for granted. 

So now the sprint to the finish begins. 

Kickoff in Providence is at noon.

"His Religion Was Decency"

You don't need TigerBlog to tell you that the world is not in a good place these days. 

Hatred rules. Divisions — sometimes within individual families, let alone political adversaries — are rampant. 

It was in this context that TB read the quote yesterday:

"His religion was decency," Nutley athletic director Joe Piro said Wednesday. "In a world that, especially lately, is more ugly than good, he was the one good thing. He was the one pure thing."

Now that quote is two years old. Exactly two years old, as a matter of fact. 

Piro was speaking about Steve DiGregorio, the former Princeton assistant football coach and longtime New Jersey high school coach and teacher who passed away two years ago today. The quote was taken from a story on nj.com about his passing, at the age of 60, after a ferocious battle against pancreatic cancer.

To TigerBlog, and so many countless others, Steve DiGregorio was always just "Digger." Truer words about anyone have never been spoken than the ones that Piro said about Digger.

His religion was in fact decency. Everything about him was decent. Everything about him was good and pure, as Piro said. 

How many people do you know who fit that description? How much does the world today need more people like that? 

If you knew Digger, you loved him. He had that impact on people, even those on the other sideline. 

For TigerBlog, Digger was one of the best friends he'll ever have. They bonded immediately when they first met at Princeton in the 1980s, and they were close from then until Digger's death.

It's been two years? TigerBlog can't figure if that's a long time or a blink, or maybe both.

It doesn't really matter. He can't do anything about it — except what he does do, which is to remember his friend exactly as he was. 

TB can't even count how many times in the last two years he's found himself in a situation that he wanted to tell Digger about, only to realize in the next microsecond that he can't. Still, he thinks about him and what he would say, in his deep, low voice and his laugh that came straight from his diaphragm. He can still hear both.

Digger left behind an army of such friends. He also left behind his wife Nadia and his three sons, Zack, Derek and Aaron. 

TigerBlog hasn't met too many families who were closer than those five were. Nadia and the three sons feel what TigerBlog does, multiplied out by a factor of who knows how much. 

TB and Digger shared a great deal. Their kids grew up around Jadwin Gym. Zack and TigerBlog Jr. were Princeton basketball ballboys together for years. They sat next to each other at a ton of Princeton games. They rode together to a bunch. They sat in each other's offices at Jadwin for years, talking about everything and nothing and anything in between.

As TB has mentioned many times, they also routinely quoted the TV show "The Odd Couple" on a daily basis. Last year, on the first anniversary of Digger's death, TB offered you the YouTube clip of his favorite scene from the show:

He also wrote this: 

TB thought he and Digger would be friends long into their 80s and beyond. A year ago he was taken, from TB and everyone else.

He's gone, but he's not forgotten. He never will be. He'll always be cherished, and his memory will always be a blessing.

The clip from "The Odd Couple" ends just before the show's closing credits. TigerBlog went back to YouTube and watched them. 

In the end, it faded to black. TB watched it again. And then again. And then a fourth time.

There is no refresh button from death, though, no matter how unfair that may be. Digger is gone. There is no way to bring him back, to a world that so desperately needs him now. 

All those who knew him can do is remember the good times, remember all the things he stood for, remember what a good man he was. His religion truly was decency. 

TB will be sad today. There's no way around that. So will many others. 

He leaves you today with the last three words Digger ever said to him: 

"Love you buddy."

More Catching Up

Catching up: 

* So here's a list of names that came TigerBlog's way among those who should be considered for the best Princeton athletes post-Princeton:

Trevor Tierney, John van Ryn, Demer Holleran, Dave Sisler, Craig Masback, Ryan Boyle, Nelson Diebel, Mason Rocca, Carol Brown, Chris Ahrens, Jed Graef, Will Venable, Nathan Crumpton, Charlie Volker and Julia and Katie Reinprecht. 

Feel free to reach out with others. 

TigerBlog's original list included: Bill Bradley, Caroline Lind, Ashleigh Johnson, Tom Schreiber, Anne Marden, Donn Cabral, Jeff Halpern. Julia Ratcliffe. Lizzie Bird. Brian Taylor. Armond Hill. Geoff Petrie. Andreanne Morin. Lauren Wilkinson. Lynn Jennings. Moe Berg. Charlie Gogolak. Zach Currier. 

Caroline Lind, by the way, was in the headlines this week for being selected to the National Rowing Hall of Fame. When TigerBlog saw this, he had one thought: She wasn't already in it? 

Lind, if you don't know, is a two-time Olympic gold medalist who led the U.S. women's 8 to wins in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012. She also was in Princeton's 2006 NCAA championship boat.

She wasn't already in the Hall of Fame? 

* The Ivy League race in men's soccer is, in a word, crazy right now, as there are six teams with between four and six points after three league games for each team. One of the teams that is below those six, with two points, is Cornell, who also happens to be one of four Ivy teams ranked in the top 50 in the RPI.

With the first Ivy League men's soccer tournament a few weeks away, the scramble to be in the top four will be intense. Princeton had a big win Saturday on its home field, taking down Columbia 4-0 after scoring three times in the first 36 minutes. 

Next up for the Tigers, who played at Seton Hall last night, is a trip to Cornell, ranked 50th in RPI. There are three Ivies ahead of the Big Red: Penn (45), Yale (46), Princeton (48). 

Dartmouth currently is in first with six points. There are three teams with five points (Harvard, Yale, Brown) and then two with four (Princeton, Penn). The Tigers still have games against Brown, Harvard and Penn.

* The weather has finally turned to autumn. As TigerBlog drove to Rhode Island last week for Princeton-Brown field hockey, the leaves were definitely starting to change. 

Still, it's not easy to get past the end of summer, and so TB continues to wear shorts as often as possible. Switching to long pants seems like an admission that winter is just around the corner.

* Speaking of field hockey, it's about the opposite of men's soccer at this point in terms of the Ivy tournament. Harvard and Penn are both 4-0, followed by Cornell and Princeton at 3-1. Dartmouth and Yale are 1-3; Brown and Columbia are 0-4. 

Harvard and Penn are already in the field of four, since they have both beaten Dartmouth and Yale and would hold the tiebreaker over either of them should they all be 4-3. Princeton and Cornell have not yet clinched, but they are close.

This weekend is huge in terms of the Ivy championship and the opportunity to host the tournament (which will determine the automatic NCAA bid). It starts Friday, with Penn at Cornell. Then, Saturday, it's Harvard at Princeton, with start time at noon. 

Princeton still has Dartmouth and Yale on the road after this weekend. 

* On the women's soccer side, Brown is 4-0-0, with wins over Princeton and Harvard, who are both 3-1-0. Nothing has been clinched mathematically, but it seems likely the tournament will be in Providence. 

Princeton and Harvard both have a four-point lead over fifth-place Columbia, while Dartmouth is in fourth, two points back of the Tigers and Crimson and two ahead of the Lions. 

This week has Princeton at Harvard (4 pm). 

* A Princeton vs. Princeton World Series is still possible. Chris Young's Texas Rangers team is now up 2-0 against the Orioles, and Mike Hazen's Arizona Diamondbacks team is up 2-0 on the Dodgers. Both of those series could end today, as they're both best-of-five. 

The Orioles (101) and Dodgers (100) are two of three teams to reach triple figures in wins this past season. The other, the Braves (104), has its hands full with the Phillies, who seem to thrive at this time of year. 

* The women's volleyball race looks like six teams for four spots. Yale is currently unbeaten at 5-0, with Harvard at 4-1, Princeton at 4-2, Brown and Dartmouth at 3-2 and Cornell at 2-3. 

Princeton hosts 0-5 Columbia Friday (7) and Cornell Saturday (5). A sweep and there's some separation as the league schedule moves past the midway point; a Cornell win changes things dramatically.

An All-Football Tuesday

TigerBlog is a big fan of finding the most obscure possible situations that can occur in a game and knowing the rules that relate to them. 

Actually, make that the rules of the game and the rules of stat-keeping.

This is part of the reason he was so excited at the opportunity to be part of the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee. The first thing he did after learning he had been selected was to read and re-read the rule book cover to cover. 

A situation came up in the Princeton-Lafayette football game the other day that he'd only seen once before, and that had been in an NFL game in the 1980s. What happens if you have a penalty called on the back end of a play whose front end is changed? 

In the 1980s, Lawrence Taylor was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for protesting a pass interference call. When the officials got together, they picked up the flag for the pass interference, which left only the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, which never would have happened had the call been correct in the first place.

That's the only other such circumstance that TB can remember until Saturday's game. Lafayette intercepted a pass, or at least appeared to, and Princeton was called for a facemask on the tackle. When the play was reviewed, it showed the ball had hit the ground, nullifying the interception. 

For a few seconds in the press box, TB wondered what would happen to the facemask. The referee then said that the penalty did in fact count, and Princeton was penalized 15 yards. 

You learn something new every day, huh? 

While the subject is football, guess who made his first NFL regular season reception Sunday? That would Princeton alum Andrei Iosivas, who caught a nine-yard pass from Joe Burrow in Cincinnati's 34-20 win over Arizona.

Iosivas almost had two catches, but he just missed getting two feet in on what would have been an extraordinary reception near the sideline. He continues to show that he has a real future in the league, probably on the Bengals, who are not going to be able to pay all of their current receivers moving forward. 

In other football news, don't look now, but the Jets have looked like they may actually have a season after all, even with Zach Wilson as its quarterback. After spending the entire preseason knowing he'd probably not take a snap all year, Wilson was thrust back into the starting lineup four plays in after Aaron Rodgers, the franchise's supposed savior, ruptured his Achilles. 

Wilson hasn't exactly been great, but he hasn't been awful the last two weeks either. This week is a huge test, as the Jets take on the unbeaten Eagles. 

And where would an all-football Tuesday be without a Princeton basketball alum. That would be Sean Gregory, now the exceptional writer who covers sports for Time Magazine.

Gregory, known as "Bones" to most people, was one of the members of the great Princeton Class of 1998, one that won three straight Ivy titles and two NCAA tournament games. 

His most recent piece for Time is a great one. It's a huge, in-depth and tremendous profile of Colorado football head coach Deion Sanders, whom you either love or hate (TB is in the "love" category, for full transparency). 

The story starts this way:

On an autumn weekend in Boulder, the sports miracle of the season is clearer than the blue Rocky Mountain sky. Whereas for years, the University of Colorado football team delivered Saturday misery—the Buffaloes enjoyed just four winning seasons in the past 20 years and finished 1-11 in 2022—Boulder now may be the hippest, happiest place in America.

That's great stuff. And remember — TB is measuring all writing these days against Fitzgerald. You can read the whole story HERE. 

Sanders is a wildly unique figure, and Gregory does an excellent job of capturing that uniqueness. If you're a sportswriter today, there aren't too any better assignments than this one, and Gregory was definitely up to it.

It's definitely worth the time, as it were.

A Great Place To Watch A Game

TigerBlog watched much of the second quarter of Saturday's Princeton-Lafayette football game from the field. 

Just before halftime, he made his way up through the stands, all the way back up to the press box. He walked in and went up the spiral staircase that takes you to side by the PA announcer's booth, and he realized that he has spent more time there than anyone else in the stadium's history — or at least has done the PA for more games there than anyone else.

Rich Kahn, by the way, was behind the mic for the game Saturday. He's among the very best that's ever done public address. 

For some reason, TB glanced over to his left, at the hallway that goes to the security booth and then to nowhere. He thought back to the first time he'd seen it — and it made him laugh.

This was back during the stadium construction in 1997, when the elevator had not yet been installed. TB and the rest of the Office of Athletic Communications staff were invited to take a look at the press box, though getting there wasn't easy.

First, they had to walk all the way up through the winding ramps that make their way up the side of the stadium — and lights had not yet been installed. TB has not been on those ramps since that day, which was back in 1998. 

Then there was the matter of getting into the main press box from the top of the ramps. See, the floor had not yet been installed, so access was only doable by crossing wooden planks that covered an opening that dropped all the way to the concourse. 

TB watched from the field, the press box and the balcony past the Class of 1956 Lounge at various times Saturday. His conclusion is always the same — The stadium remains a great place to watch a game. There is no bad vantage point, and wherever you are, it seems like you're right on top of the field.

The outcome Saturday wasn't quite what Princeton fans would have wanted to see, as a very, very improved Lafayette team won the game 12-9. It was a real defensive struggle, with rushing yards and points at a premium, which was to be expected.

Lafayette now has next week off before taking on Holy Cross in what will likely decide the Patriot League championship, even though it's still October. Holy Cross, you might remember, won the league last year and then defeated a very good New Hampshire team 35-19 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament before losing to eventual champion South Dakota State in the second round.

If Lafayette wins its next game, then the game against Princeton will have a slightly different feeling to it. 

Whatever happens, it'll be ancient history for Princeton by then. It has to be. The Tigers now have six Ivy games in six weeks, which is of primary concern. 

It begins Saturday at Brown, with kickoff at noon. Right now, the key number for Princeton is 1-0, which is the team's record in the Ivy League. How many teams are unbeaten in the league now? Two, Princeton and Harvard, who is at Powers Field the following Saturday.

There are other numbers to consider, though.

There is, for instance, 12, which his where Ozzie Nicholas ranks in both solo tackles and total tackles per game in the FCS. Nicholas is a tackling machine. You can't miss him no matter where you are in the stadium. 

There's also 310. That's the number of passing yards that Blake Stenstrom had Saturday, after having 301 total the previous two games combined. It's amazing what you can do with a mostly dry football to throw. 

And 22.3. That was the average yards per catch for AJ Barber on his seven receptions against Lafayette. Barber's seven catches resulted in 156 yards, after he had eight catches for 84 yards for the season prior to the game. 

There's also three, which is the number of rushing yards Princeton had. That's not a great number. In college, sacks count as negative rushing yards for the quarterback, but even if you take that number away, Princeton only had 33 yards on the ground. 

Clearly, this season has a long way to go. Clearly, it's hard to say where this team is now, even after four games. 

Those questions will all be answered soon.

Kickoff Against The Leopards

If you're under 50 or so and think anyone you've ever watched is the best defensive player in NFL history, they're not.

In fact, they're not even in the top three. Those places are reserved for only two players. There is no debating this point.

1) Lawrence Taylor. 2) Dick Butkus. 3) Reggie White.

In that order, by the way. 

The news came last night that Butkus passed away at the age of 80. If you never saw him play, you really missed out. 

As much as anyone, Butkus is synonymous with the Chicago Bears, who fielded perennially weak teams during his time with the franchise, which was 1965-73. That didn't matter. He played the game with as much ferocity, passion and strength as you could ever imagine, and every play for him was like his last. 

Because of that, his career was limited to just those nine seasons due to injuries. Drafted by the Bears out of Illinois and a Chicago native, he was an eight-time All-Pro (five times on the first team, three times on the second team) and twice the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, including in 1969, when the Bears went 1-13 (teams played 14 games back then).

After his playing career, Butkus went into commentating and comedic acting and was way better at the second. He was a larger than life figure, one who, sadly, is now gone.

Meanwhile, in football news much closer to home, Princeton will host Lafayette tomorrow, with kickoff at 1. It's the final non-league game of the year for the Tigers, who finish the year with six straight Ivy games after this one, and for the Leopards, who finish their season with five straight Patriot League games.

If you've been scared off by the weather forecast, don't be. It's supposed to rain overnight and Saturday morning, but it also is supposed to stop around noon and be dry for the kickoff and beyond. 

The last two weekends for Princeton have seen awful rain and wind, and those conditions are not favorable for offense. That, by the way, makes Princeton's 20-play, 81-yard, 10:07 march in the fourth quarter to defeat Columbia 10-7 even more impressive.

Before diving into tomorrow's opponent, there's the matter of the feature story on Lewis Stroebel you can read HERE. It includes this:

Lewis is one of eight siblings in the Stroebel household. There's Spencer, Maggie, Trevor, Stewart, Mitchell, himself, Wesley, and Mary (in age order). Spencer, the oldest at 33, rowed at Princeton for the men's lightweight team. Maggie, the second oldest, was a captain on the women's lightweight team and graduated in 2014. Trevor played football at Georgia Tech and Northwestern. Stewart is a Princeton 2019 graduate. Mitchell '22 and Lewis were teammates on the Princeton football team. Wesley plays football at Wake Forest while Mary, the youngest at 18, is committed to Northwestern for soccer.

As for Lafayette, first of all, the Leopard mascot has been called "The Leopard" for 100 years. If you go to the athletic website (goleopards.com), you're greeted by the opportunity to make a suggestion as to what the Leopard's name should be. 

TigerBlog's vote: Coach. Why Coach? For Pete Carril, who graduated from Lafayette in 1952. 

Princeton is 2-1 on the season. Lafayette is 4-1. The teams have one common opponent, Columbia, whom the 'Pards defeated 24-3. 

Lafayette's lone loss came in Week 2 at Duke, by the score of 42-7. 

The Leopards lead the Patriot League in eight team categories, including rushing defense and sacks. Lafayette, in fact, ranks 14th in the FCS in rushing defense, allowing only 95.2 yards per game. 

Who is No. 3 in that stat in the FCS? That would be Princeton at 59 per game, which makes the Tigers one of three Ivy teams in the top 10 (Penn fourth, Dartmouth 10th). 

There are two Ivy vs. Ivy games this weekend. Right now, there are four 1-0 teams: Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell. That number drops by one tonight since Cornell plays at Harvard at 7 on ESPNU. The other game is tomorrow, with Yale at Dartmouth. 

Princeton is at Brown next weekend. Lafayette's next opponent? Well, it's two weeks away after an off week next week, which makes the timing great, since it could be the Patriot League championship game, with the Leopards at Holy Cross. 

Neither the Tigers nor the Leopards can impact their league races this weekend. You only get a certain number of games, though, and they all matter. 

This one figures to be a good one, a close one, something Princeton has now had each of the last two weeks. 

Unlike those two, it also figures to be a dry game, at least according to the forecast. 

 

This Side Of Paradise

TigerBlog is reading "This Side Of Paradise," which was the first novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

He recently finished "Tender Is The Night," which Fitzgerald claimed was his masterpiece. He has read "The Great Gatsby" about a thousand times, or at least enough to be able to quote his favorite parts regularly.

TigerBlog is about halfway through "This Side Of Paradise." Whatever Fitzgerald thought, TB thinks "The Great Gatsby" is head and shoulders above either one of the other two.  

At the same time that he's doing this reading, he's also watching "Z - The Beginning of Everything," which is a 10-part series that tells the story of Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. It's turned out to be a bit confusing, since "This Side Of Paradise" is somewhat autobiographical and it can be hard to remember what was written in the book versus what was done in the miniseries.

Because it is autobiographical, much of it takes place on the Princeton campus, a place Fitzgerald describes in great detail, including so many places that still exist today. It's pretty fascinating to read it, if just for that alone.

The main character is named Amory Blaine, and the first name was taken from the middle name of Hobey Amory Hare Baker. Yes, that Hobey Baker. Fitzgerald was in the Class of 1917, which made him a freshman when Baker was a senior. 

The book refers to a Princeton football captain named "Allenby," who is clearly supposed to be Baker. For the record, Princeton has never had a football captain named "Allenby," which is something TigerBlog knew when he first came across it early in the book.

"This Side Of Paradise" was published in 1920, so you have to consider the language in terms of that time frame. For instance, Amory is talking to his mother's friend about where he wants to go to college and says this:

"I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes."

Is it okay if TigerBlog writes: "There were no Yale women back then, but it'll be Yale women on Princeton's campus this weekend, not Yale men?" Or is that way too contrived? 

If you think so, then forgive him and just keep going. 

The Yale women who will be here this weekend will be playing in the second game of a soccer doubleheader Saturday at 7 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. It begins with the men's game against Columbia at 4.

Those two games, by the way, are two of only four home events this weekend. The other two are the football game against Lafayette Saturday at 1 and the field hockey game Sunday at noon against Syracuse. 

The field hockey team has an Ivy League game at Brown tomorrow at 3 as the Tigers, who xxx Penn yesterday, are in the midst of a stretch of three games in five days. 

The Ivy League has added tournaments in both soccers and field hockey to this year's athletic calendar. The field hockey and women's soccer events will be the first weekend in November; the men's soccer one will be the following weekend. They'll all be at the home of the top seed.

Right now, the Princeton men are 0-1-1 in the league, which means they're one point out of fourth place and one point out of eighth place. With each league weekend that goes by, the race will start to tighten a bit, but clearly 1) it's a pretty balanced group of teams and 2) every point will be crucial.

Dartmouth, who defeated Princeton 2-1 two weeks ago, is 2-0-0 and in first place. Harvard and Brown are 1-0-1. The other five teams? They are a combined 0-4-6. 

As for the women, all eight teams played a league game yesterday, which TB believes is something new because of the tournament, which will end the regular season a week earlier than before. Princeton defeated Penn 1-0, giving the Tigers six points, tied with Harvard and Dartmouth behind Brown, who has nine. 

Behind them, Columbia has four, while Yale, Penn and Cornell have one each. 

Like the men, each point is big for the women. There will be three on the line for both teams Saturday at home in a doubleheader, one with no admissions charge.

Who's the Best

The Major League Baseball playoffs began yesterday with the Wild Card round. 

TigerBlog went back and looked at an ESPN.com story from March 28 that ranked all 30 Major League teams in order to start the season. To show you how difficult it can be to predict such things, the top six teams were, in this order: Houston, San Diego, Atlanta, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Mets. 

How'd those picks work out? It's like the first six picks in the NFL draft. Three hits. Three misses.

The Orioles were picked 17th. Again, how'd that go? By the way, the Orioles in three seasons have gone from 52 to 83 to 101 wins. 

Texas was one spot ahead of the Orioles, at No. 16. Arizona was No. 21. Toronto was No. 8.

All three of those teams made it to the postseason. All three of those teams are led by Princeton grads: Chris Young (Texas), Mike Hazen (Arizona), Mark Shapiro (Toronto).

That's pretty good. There 12 Major League playoff teams, and one-quarter of them are run by Princeton alums — Princeton alums who played three different sports as Tigers between baseball, basketball and football.

Young, as you know, was a great basketball and baseball player at Princeton, and he went on to a long career as a pitcher in the Majors, during which he won a World Series and Comeback Player of the Year Award and pitched in an All-Star Game.

It's been 10 days since Tom Schreiber scored the game-winning goal in the Premier Lacrosse League championship game as his Archers team (coached by former Tiger head coach Chris Bates, with assistant coach and former Tiger goalie Brian Kavanagh and former Tiger Ryan Ambler) defeated the Waterdogs (with former Tigers Zach Currier and Michael Sowers). 

Schreiber's goal came with just over a minute left, as time was expiring on the shot clock, and was a spectacular individual move. His lacrosse resume now includes two World Championships (including the game-winning goal with one second left in the final), professional championships in both Major League Lacrosse and the PLL, MVP Awards in both of those leagues and a Rookie of the Year award in the National Lacrosse League (box league).

And that leads to today's question, which is this: Who are the most accomplished Princeton athletes outside of what they did as Tigers?

Usually, when the subject is about who the greatest Princeton athletes of all time are, the caveat is that it can only include what they did as undergrads while they were representing the Tigers. This question is the opposite of that. 

For instance, Scott Bacigalupo is one of the greatest collegiate lacrosse players of all time who didn't have the chance to do much post-Princeton. Matt Striebel was a really, really good player at Princeton who went on to become one of the greatest professional and international lacrosse players ever (as well as one of the great pickup basketball players ever). His spot in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame was earned through what he did post-Princeton, so he would be higher on this list than Bacigalupo.

By the way, the subject here is sports, not anything else they accomplished. And TigerBlog is only talking about athletes here.

Understanding the criteria, who gets your vote? 

The three obvious choices are Ashleigh Johnson from water polo, Caroline Lind from rowing and of course Bill Bradley in basketball. All three are Olympic gold medalists; Lind and Johnson have two golds and have been the best in the world at what they do at various points of their careers.

Bradley, in addition to his international career, was a cornerstone of two NBA titles with the New York Knicks. Since his era, the Knicks have won zero additional titles, though it's only been 50 years.

Not shockingly, those three are also on the very short list for the greatest athletes at Princeton as well. So where does that leave the discussion? 

For starters, there's a matter of opportunity. 

Recent men's lacrosse players, for instance, have had the chance to win championships in the professional leagues and at the World Championships  — and several have. Then there is the other end of the spectrum, the athletes who compete in sports where having that kind of international and professional success doesn't present itself as readily.

TigerBlog started to make a list, a top 10 of sorts, but it's way too difficult, and subjective. That alone is a testament to just how accomplished Princeton athletes are post-Princeton. 

He came up with names in football, hockey, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, rowing, track and field, squash, field hockey, water polo, and swimming and diving — and that was just off the top of his head. 

Want a few names? Young, obviously. Schreiber is certainly moving up the list. Anne Marden. Donn Cabral is already up there. Jeff Halpern. Julia Ratcliffe. Lizzie Bird. Brian Taylor. Armond Hill. Geoff Petrie. Andreanne Morin. Lauren Wilkinson. Lynn Jennings. Moe Berg. Charlie Gogolak.

If you don't know who some of them are, they all did amazing things either as professional or international athletes.

Your list can go in any direction you'd like. It's certainly an interesting debate to have if you'd like.

In the meantime, the playoffs are underway. It would be great to see the three Princetonians all get out of the first round.

The Penalty Shootout

Is eight seconds a long time?

Depends if you're shooting or defending in a field hockey penalty shootout, apparently.

For a little context, college field hockey games consist of four 15-minute quarters. If there is a tie at the end, then it goes to two 10-minute overtimes, though the first goal wins. One quirk of the field hockey overtime is that four players are taken off the field, and teams go from playing 11v11 to 7v7.

If that doesn't break the tie, then it goes to a penalty shootout. This is not like penalty kicks in soccer, or even penalty strokes in field hockey. 

Instead, the ball is placed on the restraining line 23 meters from the goal. Eight seconds are put on the clock. When the umpire blows the whistle, the shooter has eight seconds to attempt to score. Play continues until the ball is in the goal, knocked out of the circle or goes out of bounds or until the horn sounds after those eight seconds.

Each team gets five chances, just like in soccer. If it's still tied after five, it goes to sudden death and continues that way until there is a winner. 

If you've been following TigerBlog's theories through the years, you know that he is not a fan of penalty kicks used to decide knockout games in soccer, whether it's the World Cup or the NCAA tournament. In field hockey, the penalty shootout is a bit more balanced, giving a mostly equal chance for shooter and goalie. 

If you're not going to have ties, then you have two choices: keep playing until someone scores, or go to this sort of definitive tiebreaker. While TB would still prefer to see games keep going, he's much more okay with the field hockey penalty shootout.

One thing that is inarguable is that it is unbelievably dramatic. Take Friday's game between Princeton and Cornell on Bedford Field. 

Actually, TB will get back to the shootout later. First, there was the matter of what happened before the game. 

Field hockey fields are watered pregame, and they're watered by huge, strong, high-paced water cannons. You definitely don't want to be standing next to one when it goes off — and now TB can tell you that from first-hand experience, as he was zapped with the water cannon at midfield. 

When he got home from the game, he was still able to wring water out of his clothes. His sneakers, by the way, are still wet. Also, he sends a special thank you to Derek Griesdorn, from the equipment room, for getting him dry shorts and a t-shirt and Anna Pitingolo from the marketing office for going and getting them. 

Anyway, fast-forwarding through the game, Princeton and Cornell ended regulation at 2-2. Then they went through the two 10-minute OTs without a goal, though Cornell certainly had a massive chance when a turnover led to a breakaway that Tiger goalie Robyn Thompson stopped and cleared.

When the clock got to zeroes again, it was time for the shootout. And for the eight-second clock. 

And, as TB said before, those eight seconds seemed to take forever when Cornell was shooting and zoom by when Princeton was. A player would start towards the circle. TB would glance at the clock. Then back to the field. Then back to the clock.

Imagine what it had to be like to be on the field?

Both teams scored on their first attempt. After that, there would be 12 more attempts but only one goal, as Thompson and Cornell's Martha Broderick were both fantastic.

The lone goal came on the second round of sudden death, when Princeton's Helena Große snuck one into the cage. Thompson made one more save, and Princeton had the win. 

If you're keeping track, Thompson turned aside the final six shots that came her way, and that doesn't even take into account the breakaway in the second OT.

The win was big, as Cornell was 2-0 in the league heading in. Now Princeton is 2-0, one of three unbeatens, along with Harvard (3-0) and Penn (2-0). The Quakers are on Bedford Field tomorrow at 4 for yet another big game.

Remember, this is the first year of the Ivy League tournament in field hockey. The top four teams will make the tournament, which will be held at the site of the No. 1 seed, and the winner will get the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid. The Ivy League champion (or champions) will be considered the team (or teams) who win the regular season.

Going For A Drive

First and 10 at the Princeton 19. Princeton drive starts at 12:14.

Princeton and Columbia played in the mist of Powers Field at Princeton Stadium Friday night. It was the first Ivy League game for both. The Tigers defense was magnificent all evening, but a two-yard interception return had the Lions on top 7-3 into the fourth quarter. Princeton forced a Columbia punt, and with 12:14 left the Tigers took over on their own 19.

First and 10. Blake Stenstrom pass complete short right to Tamatoa Falatea for six yards to the Princeton 25.

Princeton has won 13 Ivy League championships. It has never won an Ivy League championship when it hasn't won its first Ivy game. 

Second and 4. Blake Stenstrom rush middle for 3 yard loss to the Princeton 22. 

It had not been a great offensive night for the Tigers. In fact, when this drive started, Princeton had for the night only 182 yards in total offense and had converted four of 12 third downs.

Third and 7. Blake Stenstrom pass complete short right to Darion Murphy for 9 yards to the Princeton 31. FIRST DOWN.

The play was nothing fancy. Murphy pretended like he was blocking and then flared out to the right. He made one tackler miss and got the first down easily. 

First and 10. Blake Stenstrom pass incomplete short right to Dareion Murphy

Princeton had defeated San Diego 23-12 in its opener two weeks earlier in the California sunshine. When the Tigers played their home opener last weekend, it was in the remnants of a hurricane. Nothing was easy offensively. Princeton would lose that game 16-13 in overtime to Bryant. The weather wasn't quite as bad Friday night, but it was hardly conducive to throwing the ball with the rain and wind.

Second and 10. Jiggie Carr rush middle for 22 yards to the Columbia 47. FIRST DOWN.

This play was huge. Carr tried the middle and was hit immediately by three Columbia defenders. The play by all rights should have ended there, and it would have been third and long. Instead, Carr bounced off those three and then shed two more Columbia tackles as he got to the corner. By the time he was taken out of bounds, the Tigers had crossed midfield, something they had done only once on the previous four drives and only twice on the previous eight. 

First and 10. Jiggie Carr rush middle for 0 yards to the Columbia 47. 

There was now 9:30 left in the fourth. Columbia's defense had now gone 128:33 since allowing a touchdown.

Second and 10. Blake Stenstrom rush middle for three yards to the Columbia 44.

Other than the Carr run for 22 yards, Princeton had picked up 26 yards on the six other plays on the drive. It was a patient offense, to be sure.

Third and 7. Blake Stenstrom pass complete short middle to A.J. Barber for 11 yards to the Columbia 33. FIRST DOWN.

Princeton was now 2 for 2 on third downs on the drive, both of which were third and seven. In other words, they weren't easy conversions. This one was especially tough, as Stenstrom was forced out of the pocket but found Barber, who had smartly found an open spot well beyond the first-down marker.

First and 10. John Volker rush for 2 yards to the Columbia 31.

The last 24 Columbia drives to this point had seen the opponent come up pointless 22 times, with only a pair of field goals mixed in. 

Second and 8. Blake Stenstrom pass complete short right to JoJo Hawkins for 2 yards to the Columbia 29.

This play was snapped just as the clock dipped below seven minutes to go. Princeton had controlled it for more than five minutes, which was good, but now the thinking had to shift to the toughest question to answer in this situation: At what point do you start to think that you might not get the ball back if you don't get a touchdown here?

Third and 6. Blake Stenstrom pass incomplete to A.J. Barber. 

The Tigers were lucky that the pass wasn't intercepted. Now it was fourth down and 6, with 6:18 on the clock. What do you do? There are three options. Try a 46-yard field goal on a rough night for kicking and then hope the defense gets you the ball back. Punt it (possibly another pooch punt from Stenstrom), pin the Lions down and hope the defense gets you the ball back. Go for it. If you've watched Bob Surace coach at Princeton, you knew that he had already eliminated No. 1 and No. 2.

Fourth and 6. Blake Stenstrom pass complete to Luke Colello for 8 yards to the Columbia 21. FIRST DOWN.

Stenstrom had great protection. His throw to Colello was a little behind him, but it was also in the only place where no Columbia defender had a shot at it. Would Colello hang on? Yes. He also cradled the ball with everything he had when he hit the ground. This ball was not getting away from him. 

First and 10. Blake Stenstrom pass incomplete to JoJo Hawkins.

Stenstrom had Hawkins open briefly, but a Columbia defender got a hand in the way and tipped the ball from Hawkins. Now what?

Second and 10. Jiggie Carr rush middle for 2 yards to the Columbia 19. 

When the next play would be snapped, the clock was under five minutes. Princeton had two remaining timeouts. Now you're really thinking about whether you'll get the ball back.

Third and 8. Jiggie Carr rush middle for 6 yards to the Columbia 13. 

This was a tough run by Carr, who spun his way for about four more yards than he otherwise would have had. Field goal or go for it? A field goal makes it 7-6 with now less than four minutes to go, meaning a three-and-out gives you a chance to drive for a winning FG. Again, Surace never entertained that thought. This was go-for-it all along. How do you know? First, Princeton didn't call a timeout between third and fourth down, meaning that there was already a play in mind. Second, you don't run that play on third down unless you're going for it on fourth.

Fourth and 2. Blake Stenstrom pass complete to Luke Colello for 3 yards to the Columbia 10. FIRST DOWN.

The Tigers just beat the play clock to get this off in the first place. Colello ran a slant pattern, and Stenstrom hit him perfectly. They both knew exactly how many yards they needed for the first down, and again Colello was not letting this ball get away. This was a bigger moment than the last fourth down. Had Princeton not converted the earlier fourth, there was still a really good chance the Tigers would get the ball back. This time, with now 3:45 or so to go, had Princeton not gotten the first down and Columbia then gotten one first down of its own, that would almost certainly have been that. Either way, even if Princeton did get a three-and-out, it would have spent its two remaining timeouts, meaning it would have to drive presumably 70 or so yards in about 2:30 without a timeout.

First and 10. John Volker rush 2 yards to the Columbia 8.

These were two tough yards. They were also something of a foreshadow. The clock, by the way, was now under three minutes. 

Second and 8. Blake Stenstrom pass incomplete to John Volker.

Good defense by Columbia stopped Stenstrom's pass, but even had it been complete, the play would have been for minimal gain. It did stop the clock, which now had 2:50 left. 

Third and 8. Blake Stenstrom pass complete to Tyler Picinic for 7 yards to the Columbia 1.

Picinic lined up wide right, caught the pass and then took on three Columbia defenders. Had it been two, he probably would have gotten in. Instead, it was now fourth and 1. Columbia called its first timeout, with 2:14 to go.

Fourth and 1. John Volker rush middle for 1 yard and a touchdown. Jeffrey Sexton extra point is good. Princeton 10, Columbia 7. 2:07 to play.

This was one of those "who spent more time in the weight room in the off-season" plays. There was nothing fancy about it. Volker took the handoff and bulled his way straight ahead. He just got enough of a push and got just enough on his own to push the ball to the goal line. The play was reviewed for what seemed like an eternity. Then came the ruling. Call stands. Touchdown Princeton. 

Princeton's drive totaled 20 plays, traveled those 81 yards and took 10:07 off the clock. It could have stopped at almost any point, as the Tigers converted two third downs and three fourth downs to take the lead. Columbia got the ball back and did get to the Princeton 40, but Princeton's Sekou Roland sacked Columbia quarterback Caden Bell for a 22-yard loss and forced a fumble, which Ryan Savage recovered. 

Final score: Princeton 10, Columbia 7.