Ivy Tournament Bound

The Princeton men's lacrosse bus was on Interstate 95 in Connecticut, around Exit 29, as the clock reached 3:30 Saturday afternoon.

Music was playing. Players were talking and laughing. There was food. It was something of a party.

And why wouldn't it be? Princeton had just finished off its second-straight huge win, this time 15-8 at Yale after a 15-10 win at home over Penn, and suddenly Princeton was in the Ivy League tournament as the No. 2 seed. 

You know what there wasn't? Anyone who was watching the start of the Harvard-Brown game, which faced off in Cambridge at that moment. 

Ah, how different it all could have been. How different it was the last time the bus had rolled past that spot after a game.

That was two weeks earlier, when Princeton rode home in silence after a 13-12 loss at Brown. Had Princeton won that game, it would have clinched its Ivy tournament spot right there.

Instead, Brown had its first Ivy win, which became two Ivy wins seven days later against Dartmouth, in a game that ended before Princeton-Penn began. Suddenly, Princeton's Ivy tournament spot was precarious.

Heck, there were even conversations about what would happen with a three-way tie at 2-4 between Princeton, Harvard and Brown, if it came to that. 

It didn't.

First there was the win against Penn, one that was a Vitamin B12 shot of confidence for the Tigers. That set up the game at Yale, which was a noon start, where a win would mean an ILT spot. A loss, though, would have meant Princeton needed a Harvard win over Brown, in a 3:30 start, to get in.

Add in that Princeton had not won in New Haven since 2012, and that it was Yale's Senior Day, and this was going to be anything but a layup. 

And so most of the story can be told by simply knowing that as 3:30 came and went, nobody on the bus was hanging on what was happening in Cambridge. 

Princeton's win over Yale earned the Tigers a rematch with the Bulldogs in the Ivy tournament semifinals Friday at Cornell at 6. The top-seeded Big Red will take on Penn in the second semifinal, with the winners to meet for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament Sunday at 1.

The difference between Princeton at Brown and Princeton since is remarkable. What seemed so daunting after that game became reality, and it was based on something of a reinvention of a team in a very short time. 

For the second straight week, it was no longer about strategy, matchups or anything like that. It was about effort, and, again, it was there from start to finish. 

Princeton fell behind Brown 6-0 in the 13-12 loss. Princeton has not trailed at any point the last two weekends. 

What's even more impressive is that both Penn and Yale were playing for a share of the league title. Had either of them won against the Tigers, they would have had an Ivy title. It's not like they had nothing to play for.

The game that ended up mattering for Princeton Saturday was the Cornell-Dartmouth game, which started at 4. Because of traffic, the bus had only made it to Exit 11 by then. 

Had Dartmouth won, Princeton would have gotten a share of the league championship. Instead, it was all Cornell, who won 15-10.

Still, given where Princeton was not that long ago, this will do. 

If you recall last year, Princeton took down Yale and Penn to win the Ivy tournament. This time, it was the same two opponents just to get in again. 

When Princeton got back to Caldwell Field House after the trip back from Brown, the team gathered in its lockerroom to hear from the coaches. The message was simple: You're only guaranteed two more games together; if you want to keep playing beyond that, you have to be better.

Since then, Princeton has been. 

Now the Tigers get to keep playing as the calendar turns to May. That's the first goal every year. 

The next one is to keep going as long as possible. Two years ago, that meant all the way to Memorial Day. 

May lacrosse. There's nothing like it in the sport. Princeton has earned its place in the fun.

When the players got on the bus, a few of them did say that they were psyched not have to care about the outcome of the Harvard-Brown game. The coaches said the same, a bit more emphatically. 

The bus was on Route 1 when the Harvard-Brown game ended. TigerBlog was watching on his phone. 

When it ended, there was no reaction from anyone on the bus. Nobody even realized it had ended. 

The sound of the music and laughter was all that there was.

There's A New Home Run Champion

The Princeton baseball team played its first game in 1864.

It was actually the first intercollegiate athletic event in Princeton history, that baseball game against Williams. TigerBlog has always loved the fact that the final score of the first baseball game Princeton ever played was 27-16, while the score of the first football game — five years later — was 6-4.

TB isn't sure how great the record-keeping was in the 19th century, but he does know that it's been pretty good in the last 100 years or so. And so, when the record book has said for the past 25 years that the record for home runs in a career was held by Matt Evans (also a three-time first-team All-Ivy League punter), with 26, TB thinks that's pretty accurate.

Ah, but as was said on TV in 1974, there's a new home run champion, and his name is Kyle Vinci. 

The Princeton senior hit his 27th career home run during a doubleheader sweep of Dartmouth Saturday in Hanover, with scores of 14-5 and 11-3. He added his 28th yesterday, on an inside-the-park variety, as Princeton won again, this time 5-3.

Here is the record-setter:

Princeton 12, Dartmouth 3 | Bot 8

THE RECORD BREAKER! @kylesvinci is the new Princeton program record holder for career home runs after this titanic shot!

💻 - https://t.co/5auFCyUb0Q (G1) pic.twitter.com/luEn2mJP7v

— Princeton Baseball (@PUTigerBaseball) April 27, 2024

The record is great. It's certainly impressive, and who doesn't want to say "I'm the home run king."

Oh, by the way, Vinci played on the same high school team at Delbarton at current New York Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe. If you want to learn more about Vinci, you can read THIS, which TB wrote about him a year ago, before the Ivy tournament.

More important than the record — and on the subject of the Ivy League tournament, this Princeton team has put together a season based on grit as much as anything else, given the amount of injuries it has suffered, especially on the mound. 

Nobody typifies that more than Jacob Faulkner, who picked up two more saves this weekend, closing out Game 2 Saturday with a three-inning performance and then Game 3 yesterday with one inning. 

Will Sword pitched eight strong innings yesterday to get the win in the first game of the weekend, allowing three runs on six hits. The Game 2 win went to Elliot Eaton, who went six innings and allowed one run on five hits, striking out six, before turning it over to Faulkner. It was the first win of the year for Eaton. 

Then, yesterday, Sean Episcope pitched four shutout innings before Andrew D'Alessio went four more, improving to 3-0, before Faulkner got his fourth save.

Suddenly the Tigers find themselves at 11-7 in the Ivy League, in second place with one weekend of games to play. Princeton, who plays at Rutgers Wednesday at 6 in its final non-league game, finishes the regular season with three at Columbia.

The goal is for there to be additional games at Columbia after that. 

The Lions have already wrapped up the Ivy League championship and the host role in the league tournament, which will be May 17-20. Who will join the Lions for that event? 

Princeton is in second place, followed by Cornell at 10-8 and Penn and Yale at 9-9. Harvard is 8-10, and then it goes back to Dartmouth at 6-12 and Brown at 4-14. 

The season doesn't actually end this weekend, since Harvard and Yale don't play until May 11-12 in New Haven, for reasons of which TB has no idea. This weekend has Dartmouth at Penn and Cornell at Brown, in addition to Princeton-Columbia.

The Tigers hold the tiebreaker head-to-head with Penn, having taken two of three. Princeton does not have the tiebreaker against Harvard or Yale, having lost two of three to each.

A year ago, Princeton made it to the final of the first Ivy tournament. What will it take to get back? 

If Princeton wins twice against Columbia, then it will clinch an Ivy spot no matter what else happens. Princeton could also get in with either one win or no wins, depending on what else happens. It's also possible that it will go past this coming weekend, all the way to Harvard-Yale in another week.

Off To New Haven

Congratulations to Princeton's new head coach of men's hockey, Ben Syer.

This is from the release on goprincetontigers.com:

A 25-year veteran behind the bench of Division I college hockey programs, Syer takes the reins of the program after recently concluding his 13th season overall at Cornell and his 12th as Associate Head Coach of the Big Red. His previous 12 seasons as a college coach came while serving as Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at Quinnipiac from 1999-2011.

In 2018, Syer was the recipient of the Terry Flanagan Award which is presented annually by the American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) to an assistant coach in recognition of his superior body of work over a career.

“I am thrilled to welcome Ben and his family to Princeton and the men’s hockey program,” said Mack. “He has a proven track record of recruiting and developing student-athletes and positioning them for success on the ice and in the classroom. He has been part of championship teams throughout his entire coaching career, navigating one of the toughest conferences in college hockey year-in, year-out. Throughout this process, it was evident that Ben possesses the qualities we are looking for in a head men’s ice hockey coach at Princeton. He is a passionate recruiter, an innovative tactician and a commanding leader inside the locker room. Under his guidance, I am confident that Princeton’s best days on the ice are ahead of us.”

You can read the entire story HERE.

Syer's announcement came yesterday afternoon. He is a native of Kitchener, Ontario, which is a little more than two hours away from Peterborough, also in Ontario. That would be the hometown of Zach Currier.

Okay, give TB some credit. He'd already written the Currier part before the announcement came. 

Anytime TigerBlog can mention Zach Currier's 2017 season with the Princeton men's lacrosse team, he will do so. 

In case you forgot, this was Currier's line: 24 goals, 34 assists, 130 ground balls, 114x220 facing off (.564 percentage) and a team-best 21 caused turnovers. For putting together the best all-around season for a college midfielder in maybe forever, Currier was NOT selected a USILA first-team All-American, a slight that was laughable then and becomes even more ridiculous as time passes.

It still bothers TB. If you go to the record section for men's lacrosse, TB doesn't even acknowledge it. 

Currier's exploits from that season make their way into TB's pregame story for tomorrow's game at Yale in two different spots.

First, the 21 caused turnovers, which alone is an insane number for someone who, you know, didn't really play defense. Only seven Princeton players have ever reached at least 20 caused turnovers in a season since the stat was first officially kept in 2009, and Currier is the only one to do so with a shortstick. 

The reason it came up this week is that Michael Bath, a current starting defenseman, became the seventh player on the least a week ago, when Princeton defeated Penn 15-10. 

Next, there were the 24 goals. Going back 35 years — or as long as individual face-offs appear in Princeton's stats — only five Princeton players have taken at least 50 percent of the team's face-offs and scored at least seven goals, including Andrew McMeekin, who has done so this year. Currier took 46 percent of the team's face-offs that year, when he had the 24 goals.

Princeton is at Yale tomorrow in a noon start in New Haven. A Princeton win in the game clinches a spot in the Ivy League tournament and almost certainly the No. 2 seed for the Tigers. 

If Yale wins the game, then Princeton would still make the Ivy tournament should Harvard beat Brown in a game that begins at 3:30 tomorrow. The only way Princeton does not reach the ILT is with a loss and a Brown win, in which case the Bears would take the final spot. 

In Providence two weeks ago, Princeton dropped a tough 13-12 game to Brown. How would the Tigers respond against a Penn team playing for a share of the league title? 

Very well.

Princeton played its most complete game of the year, with emotion and intensity from start to finish. The result was a 15-10 win that sets up this weekend's final three Ivy games. In addition to the two TB already mentioned, Cornell is at Dartmouth, where a Big Red win means next weekend's tournament would be in Ithaca.

Yale has the nation's top scoring offense (16.54 per game). Princeton, with the No. 1 scoring defense in the Ivy League, has held eight of its 12 opponents below 12 goals, which is the lowest output for Yale this season.

Complete Games

Where to start today? 

How about with this: There have been four complete games in the Major Leagues so far in the 2024 season.

There were 38 complete games all of last season, when there were also 11 teams that had ZERO complete games. How is that possible? Analytics. And a change of mindset.

If you're in TigerBlog's age range, you remember when a complete game was almost the norm. A year ago, the Major League lead in complete games was three (Sandy Alcantara, Jordan Lyles). Back in 1975 — a year TB has picked at random — the Major League leader was Catfish Hunter, who threw 30 complete games. There were 39 pitchers who had at least 10 complete games that season.

Want to know how many there were in the 1975 season as a whole? Go ahead. Guess.

*

While the subject is baseball, the Princeton baseball team has seven regular season games to play, all on the road, all after yesterday's home finale against Wagner. There is a midweek game next week at Rutgers, and that is sandwiched around a trip to Dartmouth this weekend for three and then a trip to Columbia next weekend for three more.

To keep playing beyond that, Princeton needs to be in the top four of the Ivy standings, which would mean a return to the league tournament. Right now Princeton is 8-7 and in third place, trailing 12-3 Columbia and 10-5 Cornell.

Behind the Tigers sit Yale, Penn and Harvard, all one game back at 7-8. Princeton has the tiebreaker over Penn of the group tied for fourth, achieving that with a 3-2 win in the series opener and then a 3-1 win in the third game last weekend. 

Who was the winning pitcher in those two games? In Game 1 it was Jacob Faulkner. In Game 3, it was Jacob Faulkner. The junior from Venice, Fla., has carried the Tigers this season, and he upped his record to 6-1, with a 3.11 ERA and 37 strikeouts with nine walks in 46 innings.

Are those good numbers?

* 

In other sports played on diamonds, the Princeton softball team finds itself in first place in the Ivy League at 11-4, ahead of 12-6 Harvard and Yale. While the baseball team is away the next two weekends, the softball team is home for three this weekend against Brown (Saturday at 12:30/2:30 and Sunday at 2:30) and then finish the regular season with three at home against Cornell next weekend.

The Tigers have not yet clinched a spot in the Ivy League tournament, with a three-game lead over 8-7 Dartmouth and Columbia, who are tied for fourth. 

Princeton had a huge sweep of Yale last weekend. Unlike baseball, the Ivy softball race has two teams who have played 18 of their 21 games, while the rest have played 15.

Princeton split its first eight Ivy games. Since then, the Tigers have won seven straight.

*

The answer is that in 1975, there were 1,052 complete games. There were also 3,866 games in all that year, which means that one of every 3.67 games was a complete game.

*

The Penn Relays return to Franklin Field this weekend for the 128th edition of what Penn's website refers to as "the world's oldest and largest annual track & field carnival."

TigerBlog has been to the Penn Relays, and it is indeed a carnival. If you're going to watch track and field at the Olympics this summer, its worth your time to head to Penn for this weekend's show. 

The event starts today, and you can find all information HERE.

*

The College Water Polo Association has its tournament this weekend at Harvard. The winner of the six-team field will get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. 

Princeton is the top seed after running through the league regular-season unbeaten. The second seed is Michigan, and those two have first-round byes. 

The quarterfinals tomorrow will have third-seeded Harvard take on sixth-seeded St. Francis, and fourth-seeded Brown will play fifth-seeded Bucknell. Princeton's semifinal game will be Saturday at noon, and the final will be Sunday at noon.

Princeton is 21-6 overall, with 13 wins against ranked teams. The Tigers have the CWPA Player of the Year in goalie Lindsey Lucas, and Derek Ellingson was named the league's Coach of the Year for the third time.

Lucas is Princeton's third CWPA Player of the Year, following Ashleigh Johnson and Jovana Sekulic, both of whom are in the running for spots on the U.S. Olympic team for this summer.

*

The complete schedule for this weekend's events can be found HERE.

Senior Day With Kit And Sandi

Want to see a picture of 3,229 points scored in basketball at Princeton? 

Here you go ... can you name them? 

That's Kit Mueller (1,546 points) and Sandi Bittler Leland (1,683 points). Kit graduated in 1991 after being a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year. Sandi, Class of 1990, was a three-time first-team All-Ivy League selection, as well as a two-time national Academic All-American and an NCAA post-graduate scholarship winner. 

No other Princeton women's basketball player in program history has all three of those items on her resume.

Kit was second to only Bill Bradley in scoring in men's basketball when he graduated. Now, all these years later, only two players have passed him. Can you name them?

Mueller scored most of his points in the paint. He had any number of low-post moves, including one that was not really a move at all but simply a dribble across the lane while the defender waited for something else, only to find the ball already in the basket. He was a great passer as well, and his 381 assists rank third in program history. Who are 1-2? 

As for Sandi, she was the all-time leading scorer in Princeton women's basketball history from graduation through 2020, when Bella Alarie caught her. Today she remains the all-time leader in three-pointers at Princeton in women's basketball, with 246.

The answers to the two above questions, by the way, are: Ian Hummer and Doug Davis are 2-3 in scoring at Princeton, and Billy Ryan and Spencer Weisz are 1-2 in assists. 

The picture of the Kit and Sandi was taken over the weekend in Princeton. Kit was here for the lacrosse doubleheader, since he has a child on each team — Ellie on the women's team and Cooper on the men's. Sandi? She was here just check out the campus after she and her daughter Emma had spent some time in New York City.

It was Senior Day for the men's and women's teams in lacrosse this past Saturday, and there haven't been too many Senior Days that have ever gone better. TigerBlog wrote all about the men's game, 15-10 win over Penn, this past Monday.

The women's game was the first of the day. For a team that had played almost all of its home games this year in torrential rain, the Princeton women got sunshine in every way Saturday. 

The game against Dartmouth was over almost immediately after it started. By the end of the first quarter, Princeton led 9-0. It was 15-3 at the break, before Dartmouth made it closer in the second half, with a final of 17-10.

Even with that, the second half had a great moment too for Princeton. It came with four minutes to go in the third quarter, when Olivia Koch scored the first goal of her career on her Senior Day.

A Senior Day To Remember!

Olivia Koch scores her first collegiate goal to set off a raucous celebration at '52 pic.twitter.com/5NHDLlpNqG

— Princeton Women's Lax (@princetonwlax) April 20, 2024

The win over Dartmouth improved Princeton to 5-1 in the Ivy League, with a game at Harvard this Saturday in the regular season finale. After that, it'll be the Ivy League tournament, which will definitely be held at Yale, who is now 6-0. Princeton could still get a share of the league championship, with a win over Harvard and a Yale loss to 0-6 Columbia. 

The four teams in the Ivy League tournament will be Yale, Princeton, Harvard and Penn. That drama long ago ended. 

What will the seeds be? Yale is the No. 1. Princeton, with a win over Harvard, would be the No. 2. Penn and Harvard are both 4-2 in the league, and Penn holds the tiebreaker with its win over the Crimson earlier this year. Should Harvard beat Princeton and Penn beat Dartmouth, then there would be a three-way tie for second, and TB is pretty sure it would come down to goal differential between Princeton, Penn and Harvard in their head-to-head games, where Princeton is currently plus-five and Penn is currently plus-six. 

That's what the future holds. In the immediate past, there was a practically perfect Senior Day. 

And in the way past, like in the late 1980s, there was Sandi Bittler's playing days at Princeton. TB isn't sure why out of all the athletes he met back then that he and Sandi have stayed friends all these years, but they have. TB has been to the house in Oregon she shares with her husband Michael and their three kids, and he has seen her when she comes this way.

Oh, and, in addition to being 4-2-4-2-4 today, it's also the birthday of none other than Sandi Bittler Leland. Happy birthday, old friend. 

As always, it was great to spend some time together.

More Ivy Champs

When TigerBlog saw the women's tennis team in Providence two weeks ago, the Tigers were 2-1 in the league with four matches to go.

Actually, it wasn't even two weeks ago. It was 10 days ago. 

Since then? Jamea Jackson's team won all four matches in an eight-day stretch, the final one of which was by a 4-3 score Sunday in Princeton over Harvard. When the dust on the Ivy League season cleared, Princeton was, once again, the outright Ivy champion — for the fifth straight time and 18th overall. In addition, the prize was the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Going back before the trip to Providence, all the way to March 30, Princeton fell to Penn 4-3 in its Ivy opener. Would the team's streak of Ivy titles be in jeopardy? 

Princeton then beat, in order, Columbia and Cornell 4-3 each, Brown 4-2, Yale 4-1 and Dartmouth 4-2 before the Harvard match. None of this was easy; the match Sunday was the most dramatic of all.

A Harvard win would, in all likelihood, have meant an outright championship for the Crimson. Princeton won the doubles point, but Harvard won the first three singles matches, making it 3-1 and obviously meaning that one more singles win would end things right there. 

All three matches still on the court went to a third set. Princeton's Neha Velaga made it 3-2 with a win at No. 1. It was 3-3 when Madeleine Jessup won at No. 4.

So who was it now up to with the Ivy League championship on the line? That would be a freshman, Alice Ferlito, at No. 5, who won her first set 6-1 and lost her second 6-1.

That's a lot of pressure, no? You already know she won, because TB already said Princeton won the match, so instead, before getting into that part of it, there's the question of who Alice Ferlito is. 

She came to Princeton from Barcelona, where she graduated from the Emilio Sanchez Academy. You can read all about how she came to play the sport and be at Princeton in this very nice story HERE. If you don't want to read it all, you can have this quote from her coach at ESA, Alvaro Pino:

“For Alice earning a position on the team, having that responsibility on the team, helps a lot in maturity, and she is a player who likes to make her team proud."

And did she ever make them proud in the third set. With an Ivy title in the balance, Ferlito won that last set 6-4. The result was this picture:

Ah, nothing like good jubo, right? 

For Princeton, that's the ninth Ivy title jubo picture of the year and 10th league title jubo picture overall. Your conference champs to date:

Men's cross country, men's indoor track and field, women's basketball, men's basketball, women's swimming and diving, men's squash, men's fencing, women's fencing, men's water polo and now women's tennis.

There are other teams with a shot at Ivy titles this spring as Princeton chases 10, which is always a good milestone for an academic year. Princeton, by the way, has reached double figures in Ivy titles in an academic year 28 times. Harvard has done it 11. Nobody else has ever done it. 

Princeton did not win the Ivy League championship in men's or women's golf this weekend. The Yale men won, beating Princeton by an excruciating three strokes, while the women's champ was Dartmouth, who won for the first time ever.

Princeton did have the league's medalist as the individual champion on the women's side. That title belonged to Victoria Liu, who won for the second time in her career, making her the fourth Princeton woman to do so. 

The others? Julia Alison (1999, 2001), Avery Kiser (2002, 2003, 2004) and Susannah Aboff (2008, 2009).

Liu entered the final day tied at plus-two with Dartmouth's Sophie Thai and then shot an even-par 72, while Thai finished the day four-over.  Liu, who you may recall played in an LPGA event last summer,  will now advance to the NCAA Regionals.

A Wire-To-Wire Team Effort

There were two mantras for the Princeton men's lacrosse team as it readied for its game Saturday afternoon against Penn.

First: "Not on our field." A Penn win would mean an Ivy League championship for the Quakers, and there was nobody at all on Princeton's team who wanted to see that celebrated all over Sherrerd Field.

The second: "Play hard." Whatever you did, do it full speed. Whatever problem came up, just play through it with everything you had.

Because of the latter, you saw plays like when Chad Palumbo dove fully extended to prevent a ball from reaching the midline. Or like when John Dunphey managed to stop another loose ball just before it got to the sideline and then had the presence of mind to reestablish himself in the field before he touched after his momentum took his out of a bounds. 

Or there was Andrew McMeekin, who ripped two more goals after face-off wins but who also spent the day keeping loose balls alive for teammates like Liam Fairback and Marquez White to snag off the wings on those face-offs. As a result, he won 16 of 27 face-offs while picking up a ground ball on only half of them.

These were just a few examples. Wherever you looked, a Princeton player was going 100 percent, especially shortstick defensive midfielders Fairback, White, Michael Kelly and Cooper Mueller, who between them had six of Princeton's eight caused turnovers.

And so yes, the lingering image from the game will be the stunning end-to-end run and backhanded shot for a score by Princeton goalie Michael Gianforcaro in the fourth quarter. It was a hustle play to be sure, but it was more than anything just an incredible individual effort — not to mention the first goal by a Tiger goalie since Alex Hewit in 2008.

That goal aside, this was not a day for individual efforts. This was a wire-to-wire team win.

Because of the latter mantra, the former also came through. The final was 15-10 Princeton in a game the Tigers never trailed and led for the final 42 minutes, and there would be no Ivy title celebration for the Quakers afterwards.

The game, which packed nearly 3,000 into the Sherrerd Field stands, was a huge one for Princeton, and not just because of the Ivy League race. It came seven days after a crushing loss at Brown, one that revitalized the Bears' season and threatened to derail Princeton's. 

For one week, the tempo, tone and intensity of practice amped up. This wasn't going to be as much about matchups, offensive sets or even the clearing game. Those mattered, but not as much as effort. 

It was the last thing Princeton heard as it left its team room prior to the game. It's something the team gave all game.

Brown had been 1-9 overall and 0-3 in the Ivy League before the game against Princeton. A win by the Tigers would have clinched an Ivy League tournament spot. Instead, Brown went up 6-0 and never trailed, even after it was tied twice.

Princeton suddenly was in all kinds of trouble in the league tournament race, and with two teams who had already clinched their spots and were thinking league title left on the schedule. With the win against Penn achieved, that leaves a game at Yale this coming Saturday at noon.

Harvard was eliminated with its loss to Cornell, who clinched the third of the four ILT spots. Brown stayed alive by beating already eliminated Dartmouth 14-11. 

Entering the final weekend of the regular season, a Princeton win over Yale would give the Tigers the fourth spot in the field and possibly a seed as high as No. 2. If Yale wins, it would clinch at least a share of the championship (so would Cornell, and the host role, with a win over Dartmouth). 

On the other hand, a Princeton loss and a Brown win over Harvard eliminates the Tigers and puts Brown in the ILT. It would be an amazing accomplishment for Brown, one that the Tigers hope not to see.

For Princeton, there was no going back in time to the fourth quarter that got away in Providence. The only way was forward, and Princeton slammed ahead with its best, most complete performance of the season.

Now it needs another one in New Haven, or it will be forced to get some help from Harvard (that game starts at 3:30).

The formula for success isn't tricky. 

Play hard. For 60 minutes. 

This past Saturday on Sherrerd Field, it was a beautiful sight to see. 

Someone In The Crowd

TigerBlog saw "La La Land" for the first time the other night. Is it really possible that Ryan Gosling never played the piano before that movie?

TB always thought Gosling would be the right person to play Hobey Baker if a movie about the great Princeton athlete from the Class of 1914 would ever be made. Either way, "La La Land" is amazing. Watch it if you haven't already. Watch it again if you have.

As for this weekend ...

*

The last time the Penn Quakers played a men's lacrosse game on Sherrerd Field, there were 41 goals scored, the last of which came from the Tigers' Chris Brown in overtime, ending a 21-20 epic.

It was the only game Princeton has ever played in its long, long history in which both teams reach at least 20 goals. The Quakers will be back tomorrow (face-off at 5) for the first time since that game, which was pretty much universally considered the best college lacrosse game of 2022. 

Now, since that game, the teams have played twice, both last year. There was the regular-season game at Penn, won by the Quakers 9-8 in overtime, and then an Ivy League tournament semifinal game, won by Princeton, also 9-8. 

That's a total of 34 goals in two games last year after 41 in one game two years ago. The 2022 game was the highest-scoring game in program history; the two games last year are the only two Princeton men's lacrosse games in the last 55 the team has played where neither team has reached double figures.

Talk about different outcomes. 

If TigerBlog had to guess, he'd say the game tomorrow will be somewhere in the middle. It's a huge game for both teams, as Penn would clinch at least a share of the Ivy title with a win and Princeton is still chasing down an Ivy tournament spot.

Princeton has to make sure it's playing the Penn game tomorrow and not last week's Brown game, a frustrating 13-12 loss to the Bears. It's hard to turn the page from such games, but there's no time to dwell on losses, or, for that matter, wins at this time of year. 

*

 

*

The men's game is the second game of a Sherrerd Field doubleheader, which starts at noon with the women's game against Dartmouth. The current Ivy League standings have Yale at 5-0, Princeton at 4-1 and Harvard and Penn at 3-2, followed by 2-3 Cornell and Brown, 1-4 Dartmouth and 0-5 Columbia.

The league tournament will almost surely be held in New Haven, as Yale needs to win only one of its final two games, either tomorrow against Cornell or next week against Columbia. Princeton has won four straight in the league since an 11-9 loss to Yale in its opener.

Yale and Princeton have clinched their ILT spots. Penn (who plays Brown) and Harvard (who plays Columbia) would also do so with a win tomorrow.

Princeton is at Harvard next week in a game that will have a big impact on seedings. 

Princeton lost 16-12 to Maryland Wednesday night in a game in which the Terps outscored the Tigers 7-0 in the third quarter. Take that away, and well, you can't, but you get the point.

McKenzie Blake, by the way, has 47 goals and 47 draw controls. With three more of each, she would join Elizabeth George as the only players in program history with at least 50 of each in a season. 

*

Princeton is at Yale for three softball games this weekend. The Tigers head to New Haven one game back of the Bulldogs in the loss column, as Yale is 12-3 and Princeton is 8-4.

The Ivy League tournament for softball will also be at the home of the top seed. It's too early to think about clinching spots with so many games to play, but first place is on the line in these three.

The baseball team is home for three against Penn this weekend, with two tomorrow starting at 11:30 and then a single game Sunday at noon. 

Talk about a tight race? The top and bottom of the league are separated by six games. Princeton is in a three-way tie for third with Penn and Yale at 6-6, with Columbia at 9-3, Cornell at 8-4, Dartmouth and Harvard at 5-7 and Brown at 3-9.

*

As TB wrote yesterday, the Ivy League tennis championships will be decided this weekend. Princeton's women are home against Dartmouth tomorrow and Harvard Sunday in a match that could decide the title.

There will also be Ivy titles won at the league's golf championships this weekend.

The full schedule for the weekend is HERE.

On The Bus

TigerBlog is writing today about the last weekend of the Ivy League tennis season. 

It may take him a little while to get there, though. To wit:

The bus driver for the men's lacrosse team's trip to Brown last weekend was an amiable sort named Andy.

At one point, the name "Kaitlyn" was mentioned, and Andy's ears perked up.

"Chen?" he said. 

That's the one.

"I drove them a few times," he said. "You could tell she's the real deal."

She certainly is. Chen, the three-time Most Outstanding Player at the Ivy League women's basketball tournament, has the stats, wins and accolades to prove it. As Andy can attest, she also carries herself like a champion.

This past week, Chen added two more impressive items to her resume. First, she was named a second-team College Sports Communicator Academic All-American, becoming the fourth Princeton women's basketball player to be honored on the national level (Sandi Bittler twice, Michelle Miller twice and Lauren Edwards once were the others).

Also this week, Chen was, not surprisingly, named a first-team All-Metropolitan Basketball Writers' Association selection. Her teammates Ellie Mitchell (second-team) and Madison St. Rose (honorable mention) were also honored.

Who were the other players on first-team?

You had Abbey Hsu from Columbia, as well as players from St. John's, Stony Brook and ... Sacred Heart. The Sacred Heart contribution would be Ny'Ceara Pryor, who was honored for the second straight year. Pryor has finished her first two seasons at SHU with 1,222 points, 462 rebounds and 297 assists. 

Are those good numbers? TB will always take a chance to pump up Sacred Heart, being his son's alma mater and all.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, in addition to driving Princeton women's basketball and men's lacrosse, Andy also mentioned having driven the women's soccer team and the men's hockey team. Bus rides are a huge part of the Princeton athletic experience for the athletes, and each team travels with its own culture, traditions and procedures. 

TB has been on the bus with a few teams, most notably field hockey and men's lacrosse. He can attest to just how different those rides are, and he knows that all teams have their own uniqueness.

This past Saturday, the men's lacrosse bus wasn't the only one to arrive in Providence. The women's tennis team stayed in the same hotel as the Tigers, and the women's lacrosse team stayed across the street.

TigerBlog was in Room 616 at the Providence Courtyard Marriott. From his window, he could see all the buses lined up one behind the other. 

The first person TB saw when he came downstairs after checking in was women's tennis coach Jamea Jackson. If you've never met Jamea, she, like Kaitlyn Chen, is clearly the real deal. 

She's always smiling, and she appreciates any time anyone comes to watch her team compete. She has a way of making you feel like you're part of the women's tennis family, even if you just stopped in for a bit.

Jackson introduced TB to her assistant coaches, Nathan Thompson and Richard Sipala. Again, it was like an extended family reunion.

TB asked them about their bus ride. The men's lacrosse team travels on two buses, one for offense and one for defense. Even with the two buses, some of the players have to double up. 

The women's tennis team? One bus. Eight players. 

Princeton, of course, wasn't the only school who had sent teams on the road this past weekend. Princeton's hotel also included Syracuse track and field and a whole bunch of people in Drexel shirts. 

The women's tennis team had two matches this past weekend, first defeating Brown 4-2 Saturday and then taking down Yale 4-1 Sunday. Right now, Princeton is 4-1 in the Ivy League, with a 4-3 loss to Penn in its opener.

Harvard is 5-0, and Penn is 3-2. Harvard is at Penn Saturday and Princeton Sunday at 1. The Tigers play Dartmouth at 1 Saturday at home as well.

This is the final weekend of the Ivy League tennis season. The men's side is crowded at the top, with Princeton, Harvard and Columbia all at 4-1 heading into this final weekend.

Columbia is at Yale and Brown. Princeton is at Dartmouth and Harvard. 

There's a lot on the line this weekend in Ivy tennis. For the Princeton men, it means getting on the bus before getting on the courts. 

Hopefully the ride home after will be a celebratory one.

100 Percent Chance Of Women's Lacrosse

There's a 100 percent chance of a home game for the Princeton women's lacrosse team tonight. 

There's a 53 percent chance of showers at 7 pm, which is when tonight's game begins. That would make it among the best weather forecasts for the Tigers to play at home this season. 

Hey, it's only supposed to be light rain, even a gentle, soft spring rain. That'll be quite different than the pouring, biblical rains with temps in the 40s that Princeton has endured most of its home season.

A little rain isn't going to deter these Tigers. 

Princeton's opponent tonight is Maryland, whose current RPI is No. 5. This will be Princeton's seventh game against a team currently in the top 20 of the RPI, including five of the current top 10.

That's a team that has been tested. 

Princeton is 8-4 overall, with an RPI of 13 of its own. The Tigers have already clinched a spot in the Ivy League tournament and seem to be in good shape for a return to the NCAA tournament. 

This is a team in every sense as well. Grace Tauckus is fifth in Division I in free position goals per game, making her the only Princeton player to rank in the top 20 nationally in any statistical category.

The top 100, though, is dotted with Princeton players. McKenzie Blake ranks 77th in Division I in points per game. Haven Dora ranks 31st in assists per game. Amelia Hughes in 29th in saves per game. The list goes on like that.

As a team, Princeton ranks 14th nationally in scoring offense and 16th in shooting percentage. Perhaps the best number is 12.33, which is the number of times per game Princeton turns the ball over, a figure that ranks ninth in Division I.

Blake leads Princeton with 43 goals on the year. There are six other players in double figures in goals, and two — Tauckus and Jami MacDonald — who have better than 20 (Dora is one away from joining that group). There are four players in double figures in goals and assists (Tauckus, MacDonald, Dora and Kari Buonanno).

By the way, Blake has 43 goals and 43 draw controls. Should she get seven  more of each, she'd join Elizabeth George as the only player in program history to have a season of at least 50 of each.

When you have a team that has the kind of scoring balance that Princeton does, it makes you harder to defend. It's not like you can simply lock off Blake and take your chances. 

Dora, for her part, has had a huge breakout sophomore year. After six points a year ago as a freshman with three goals and three assists, Dora now has 43 points on 19 goals and 23 assists through 12 games this year. 

While Princeton ranks 14th in scoring offense, Maryland brings the nation's No. 11 scoring defense to the game, as the Terps allow 8.6 goals per game. Emily Sterling, the Maryland goalie and the two-time Big Ten Goalie of the Year, is No. 3 in the country with a .527 save percentage.

The Terps are 11-4 overall but 2-3 in their last five, beginning with a 13-9 loss to Penn on March 27. Princeton beat Penn 14-9 in the Quakers' next game after their Maryland game. Princeton comes into the game tonight after putting up 23 goals Saturday against Brown.

By the way, the forecast for the game at Brown was for sunshine, though a bit windy. And what happened during the women's game? It rained, of course, even though there was a zero percent chance of rain according to the weather.

After tonight, Princeton has two regular season games to go, this Saturday at home against Dartmouth (noon start, Princeton-Penn men follow at 5) and then April 27 at Harvard. Princeton is 4-1 in the league, behind Yale, who is 5-0, including defeating Princeton 11-9 on March 2 in the Ivy opener for both.

Yale, who along with Princeton is the only other team to have clinched its ILT spot, has games remaining against Cornell and Columbia; one win in those two means that the tournament will be at Yale. Harvard and Penn are a game back of Princeton at 3-2 in the league.

The Cure For A Bad Mood

TigerBlog walked outside yesterday morning, and the spring weather was already perfect. 

Then he stopped off in a store, where he was the second one on line at the checkout. The cashier said to the man in front of him "have a nice day," to which the man responded "you have a better one."

How nice was that? That comment lifted TB's morning spirits even higher. 

And then? He was driving into Princeton when he came to the point where 206 heads to the left at Nassau Street. The lane to go straight onto Nassau Street was blocked by a broken down van with a tow truck already there, so everyone in that lane had to move over into the other one. 

It was all going smoothly until TB pulled over and heard honking. When he looked in his rearview mirror, he saw a driver who was gesturing wildly at him. 

It didn't cause TB any road rage. More like "road confusion." Where did she want him to go? Wasn't it obvious what was going on? 

Anyway, that did take his spirits down a few levels. Leave it to Joe Dubuque to bring them back up.

The head coach of wrestling at Princeton came into TB's office to introduce his new head assistant coach, Cody Brewer. As Dubuque introduced Brewer, he asked TB when the next entry with him in it would be, suggesting that nothing drives blog traffic quite like a mention of Dubuque.

TB assured him that it would be today, and so here he is. 

Dubuque is a definite, 100 percent can't miss cure for someone's flipping you off on Nassau Street. That's for sure. 

As for Brewer, TigerBlog didn't know anything about him, other than he certainly looks the part of a wrestling coach, and, presumably, a pretty good wrestler before that. As it turns out, he is all of that.

Brewer coached at Virginia Tech and Northwestern before this, and as an undergrad he was the 2015 NCAA champion at 133 pounds. He came into the event as the 13 seed and then won five straight matches, including taking down the top seed 15-3 in the semifinals and the third seed 11-8 in the final. 

The third seed, by the way, was named Cory Clark and he was from Iowa. Two years later, in 2017, Clark won an NCAA title of his own.

TB hopes he enjoyed his few years as making a claim to being the best "Clark" from Iowa until Caitlin came along. Are the two Clarks related? TB can't find anything to suggest they are, but they did grow up 14 miles apart from each other. 

With TB's mood now much back on the positive side, he saw an envelope on his desk, one of those inter-University envelopes that he used to get all the time and now gets once a year or so. These are the envelopes that are sealed with the red piece of string that winds around the two red circles, and the front has different spaces to cross out the last person who had it and add the next address. 

This envelope came to Jadwin Gym from Firestone Library. Before that, it was at the East Asian Library, 693 Alexander, 226 Alexander and originally at Firestone Library. Presumably, TigerBlog will cross out his name and send it off to someone else, even though he hasn't had to send something through the University mail system in years. 

What was in the envelope? 

It was a book entitled "The Princeton University Trivia Book." TB's mood, which Dubuque had rescued, was now even better.

What could be better than a Princeton University trivia book for TB, whose title includes the word "historian?" How about being in the acknowledgements as one of the book's selected sources, from TB's own "I Can Do Anything, Stories From The First 50 Years Of Women's Athletics At Princeton."

The trivia book was compiled by Helene Van Rossum and TB's longtime friend and University archivist  Daniel J. Linke. 

If you're interested, you can order it HERE. It'll be available on Amazon starting next month.

The book is divided into eight sections: History, Student Life, Princeton Culture, Learning and Teaching, People, Extracurricular, Around Campus and Fun Facts. 

Trust TigerBlog on this. You'll absolutely love it. 

 

Eight For Morrisroe

Today's entry is one of those where TigerBlog went to look something up, got distracted and then almost forgot what it was he was trying to find.

The Princeton women's lacrosse team defeated Brown 23-10 in Providence Saturday, on a day when freshman Meg Morrisroe tied the school record for goals in a game with eight. When TB went to the women's lacrosse record book, he saw that Morrisroe is now the third Princeton women's lacrosse player to reach eight goals in a game.

The first was Kathy Mahoney, who did so in 1981, also against Brown. The second was Catherine McCarthy, who had eight against Yale in 1989.

He figured he'd go to the Daily Princetonian archives to see what he could find out about both of the other record holders. When he went to the Monday edition after Mahoney's big game, he didn't find anything about those eight goals, but he did see a picture of Princeton's baseball shortstop at the time, Henry Milligan.

If you don't know who Henry Milligan is, he won 10 letters at Princeton between football, wrestling and baseball. None of those, though, was the sport in which he'd become most famous.

That would be boxing, where he was an excellent light heavyweight, despite weighing only 185 pounds or so. He reached the semifinals of the 1984 Olympic Trials at 201 pounds before he lost to, well, can you name who beat him? 

The person who beat him then lost to a different Henry, this one named Tillman, in the Olympic Trial final. Henry Tillman then won the Olympic gold medal.

Give up? It was an 18-year-old Mike Tyson.

Milligan fought as a professional and even had a cruiserweight title fight. He was also an engineer. 

Meanwhile, the story about Mahoney was actually in the Tuesday "Prince" that week. Mahoney broke the record held by none other than Emily Goodfellow, one of the very few people who can say "I won more letters at Princeton than Henry Milligan," as she won 12. Goodfellow scored seven against Radcliffe in 1974 to set the record, and Jody McNeil equaled that with seven against Hofstra in 1978.

That 1981 game against Brown, by the way, also had another Princeton player who scored seven, Wiz Lippincott. 

The 1989 game was a 17-3 romp over Yale. This is how McCarthy was described in the student paper after her first goal: 

"McCarthy, who plays like Ming the Merciless and shoots like Larry Bird, was just getting warmed up."

TigerBlog has no idea who Ming is. He doesn't sound like a fun guy though.

Meanwhile, back in the present, TigerBlog was watching the women's lacrosse game against Brown on ESPN+ before he headed over to the men's game. The first quarter ended at 9-6 Princeton and took 45 minutes to play. 

Princeton's defense tightened up. Princeton's offense kept going.

Morrisroe's eight goals came after she had scored six goals on 16 shots for the season to date. Against the Bears she went off for eight goals on 10 shots. 

If you didn't notice, Morrisroe's goal total was the most in the last 35 years. Think about all of the great players Princeton has had since then who never got there. 

It was an impressive win for Princeton, especially considering the quick turnaround from its loss at Loyola Wednesday night. The Tigers then had to come back from Baltimore and head up to Providence Friday for a noon game Saturday — against the No. 25 team in the country. 

Princeton sprinted away from the Bears, and when it was over, Princeton had run all the way into the Ivy League tournament, clinching a spot in the four-team field.  

With two weeks to go in the regular season, Princeton has three games to go. There is this coming Wednesday at home against Maryland, and then the league season concludes with Saturday's noon game against Dartmouth, also on Sherrerd Field, and then a trip to Harvard April 27. 

The Ivy standings right now have Yale at 5-0, followed by Princeton at 4-1 and then Harvard and Penn at 3-2. Yale finishes with Cornell and Columbia, and Princeton can only get a share of the title if the Bulldogs lose at least one of those. Should Yale win one more game, it would definitely host the league tournament.

Princeton, though, is playing as well as it has all season. The game Saturday in Providence was another big step forward.

A Lot Of Athletes

A guy goes in for his physical, and he asks the doctor if she saw the eclipse. The doctor said she missed it, and the guy says the next total solar eclipse will be in 2079, when he'll be nearly 120 years old.

"Will you be around for it?" the doctor asks.

"Depends how good a doctor you are," the guy says. 

That was an actual conversation from TigerBlog's physical Tuesday, by the way.

*

There will be 15 Princeton teams who compete this weekend. Don't believe TB? See for yourself HERE.

Two of those teams will be the men's and women's track and field teams, who will host the Larry Ellis Invitational.

Larry Ellis, if you don't know, was the first Black head coach ever in the Ivy League. Hired in 1970 to coach the men's track and field team, he would serve in that position for 22 years. Before he coached at Princeton, he was the head coach at Jamaica High School in Queens, where he coached Bob Beamon (look him up if you don't already know), and before that he served in the Korean War.

Ellis, who was also an Olympic coach, was part of one of the most insightful moments TB has ever experienced. TB was walking down the Jadwin balcony when he saw Ellis and one of his athletes outside of his office, and TB heard the athlete ask the coach what he needed to do to be able to get to a certain time in his event.

And what did Ellis answer? With all the wisdom of the world, he said simply "run faster."

As anyone who ever met him could confirm, he was an extraordinarily kind man. He was a real gentleman, to quote a coach Ellis brought to Princeton in 1977 — Fred Samara.

Larry Ellis passed away in 1998. The Larry Ellis Invitational originated one year later.

* 

Of all the athletes who will be on this campus this weekend, one who bears watching is Dartmouth softball freshman pitcher Jensin Hall, who has been the Ivy Pitcher of the Week three of the last four weeks. Hall earned her most recent honor this past week after striking out 17 Brown Bears in a Big Green win.

The Ivy softball race is a good one, with Columbia currently on top at 7-2, followed by Yale at 9-3 and then Princeton and Dartmouth at 5-4 and Harvard at 6-6. The path to the NCAA tournament goes through the Ivy tournament, in which the top four teams will play.

Princeton and Dartmouth will play twice tomorrow, starting at 12:30, and then once more Sunday, at 12:30.

*

Here's something TigerBlog didn't realize about Karlie Samuelson when he wrote about her and the London Lions yesterday: She's Devin Cannady's sister-in-law.

Cannady, one of the great scorers in Princeton men's basketball history and an NBA player himself, is married to Katie Lou Samuelson, Karlie's sister who is two years younger and herself a professional basketball player. 

By the way, if you haven't seen the shot that Holly Winterburn hit to give London the win in the game the other day, look it up — and then imagine this had happened in an NBA playoff game or an NCAA championship game.

*

TigerBlog's longtime friend Matt Ciciarelli is a former Princeton baseball contact for the Office of Athletic Communications, but he hasn't been to Clarke Field in quite some time. He said he might come by for the Monmouth game, but it was moved up a day to Tuesday, which made it tougher for him.

What was the draw? The son of a friend of his plays for Monmouth. Turns out his name is Trey Porter, and it turns out that Ciciarelli missed out on something incredible by not being at the game.

First of all, Porter made his first start of the season Second of all, he made this catch:

Hey @SportsCenter we have a home run saving catch for you from freshman Trey Porter in today’s @MUHawksBaseball game at Princeton.

Watch the rest of the game here: https://t.co/N3rPRsHZF7#sctop10 #FlyHawks pic.twitter.com/Pz0DJI8WnC

— Monmouth Hawks (@MonmouthHawks) April 9, 2024

It doesn't get much better than that, does it? Apparently it does: It was only the No. 3 Play of the Day on SportsCenter.

As for the Ivy baseball standings, they also have Columbia on top, at 8-1. Behind the Lions, only four games separate second from eighth and only three games separate second from seventh. The race for the tournament spots will be intense.

Princeton currently sits tied for third with Penn at 5-4, one game behind Cornell and one game ahead of Yale. Princeton has three this weekend at home against Harvard (doubleheader tomorrow at 11:30, single game Sunday at noon) and then three with home against Penn followed by three-game trips to Yale and Columbia

*

There is a lacrosse doubleheader in Providence tomorrow, with the women's game at noon and the men's game at 3:30. By the end of the night, one or both (or neither) of the Princeton teams could have clinched an Ivy tournament spot. 

EuroCup Champs

TigerBlog said before the NCAA basketball tournaments started that the women would outdraw the men if Caitlin Clark got to the final, and that's exactly what happened.

Oh, and it wasn't even close — the women drew four million more people than the men for the championship games.The NBA Finals and the World Series couldn't match Clark either. Again, what other athlete has ever had this kind of impact? 

There were more than 18 million who watched the women's game. You have to be either college or NFL football to exceed that number. 

There were far fewer viewers for the basketball game TigerBlog watched from start to finish yesterday. It seemed like viewership peaked around 7,000, at least according to the tracker on YouTube.

This one, though, was about as crazy as you can hope for out of a championship game. In fact, TigerBlog has never really seen anything quite like it. You could even say it was a championship game where the winner wasn't important.

The game was between the London Lions and Turkish team Besiktas, who were playing Game 2 of the EuroCup women's finals at the Copper Box Arena in London. The first game had been seven days earlier in Istanbul, where Besitkas had won 75-68.

The way the series works is that it's a two-game, home-and-home, total points situation. Because of that, Besitkas went into the game yesterday needing only to lose by fewer than seven to win the championship. 

It was a very strange way to watch a game. London led throughout, but the lead jumped above and below seven a bunch of times. It put all kinds of craziness on the proceedings — and on the play-by-play man, who kept giving the score as this particular game first and then aggregate second.

What was TigerBlog's interest? First and foremost, there was Abby Meyers, the 2022 Ivy League Player of the Year at Princeton who played in the WNBA last summer and who was in her first season with the Lions this year. 

Then there was the fact that when TB was in England this past winter, he went to write a story about Meyers and saw the Lions play twice, once in the Copper Box. It was a great experience for TB in terms of the facility and the fan base in addition to the basketball, and he has been following the team ever since.

London made its way through the EuroCup playoffs, becoming the first team from England ever to reach the final. And now all the Lions had to do was win by eight or more. 

Meyers came off the bench to hit a huge three and a layup in the first half, on a night when every single point mattered. Then, midway through the second half, she came off the bench to take two foul shots when Karlie Samuelson, who played at Stanford and for Great Britain the Olympics, was hurt while being fouled. Meyers had missed two free throws earlier in the half, but, again with the pressure of knowing every point mattered, she knocked down both.

London was in control of the game itself, and had that been all that mattered, the final few minutes would have been played much differently. Not on this night.

The fourth quarter began with London ahead 60-55, or minus-2 in the aggregate. It was 60-59 two minutes into the fourth, but the Lions scored five straight. Minus-1. 

It was 68-61 with 4:01 left. Even. It was even again at 70-63 and 73-66, the latter with under two minutes left. 

Now what? Turkey cut it to 73-68, but plus-two, with 1:35 left. A London three made it plus-one Lions with 1:16 to go. With 31 seconds left, Besitkas scored again. 76-70. London now minus-1. 

Holly Winterburn, who played at Oregon and is another great young English player at 23, drained a three-pointer with 12 seconds left. 79-70. London plus-two. That was the biggest shot of the night, one that became the game-winner when Samuelson came up with a steal and then Megan Gustafson, who held the career scoring record at Iowa before Caitlin Clark, sealed it with two foul shots. 

Final score: London 81, Besitkas 70. Lions, plus-four. 

When TigerBlog was there in December, he met a teacher named Becky Power, who had brought her daughter Elsie to that game. They were both there yesterday for the clincher.

These were the videos that Becky sent postgame last night:

 

What do you see there? You see joy. You see a huge crowd. And you see a lot of men in the audience. 

You also get to see Elsie at the very end of the second video. 

Here is what Becky said about the game: "We were there!!! It was amazing!!! I've never seen the Copper Box so packed! Elsie's been to a few sport games, including the Premier League and even a Women's World Cup game, and she said this was the best event she's been to."

This was also a very high level of basketball. It just shows you how much the women's game has grown, especially in Europe. 

Congrats to the London Lions and to Abby Meyers. And to the London fans, who were treated to something very special.

Do you think the NBA playoffs would be better if that was the format for the first round?

76 Degrees

As pre-tournament prognostications go, TigerBlog did pretty well for the recently completed March Madness.

First, he picked South Carolina to win the women's tournament, which the Gamecocks did. That wasn't all that difficult, though. South Carolina was something of a lock from the start.

On the men's side, TB went with Purdue in his pre-tournament guess. The Boilermakers didn't win, but they did make it all the way to the final Monday night before losing to Connecticut.

It would have been too easy to pick South Carolina and UConn. Picking Purdue to get to the final? TB is guessing not too many people did that after the way the Boilermakers played in the tournament the last two years. 

As for the moving screen call at the end of the Iowa-UConn women's game, here are TB's four thoughts:

1) it was clearly a violation of the rules
2) what percentage of similar violations of the rules are called moving screens during the course of the season, whether it be the first quarter of a game in November or the third quarter of a game in February?
3) he's glad he wasn't the ref
4) would Paige Bueckers have made the shot to give the Huskies the win?

Here was another pre-tournament pick that came true: In general, the women's tournament was much more exciting than the men's. When it was over, TB could name way more players from the women's teams than the men's teams.

And, obviously, the most significant part of the last few weeks is the impact that Caitlin Clark had on women's basketball and American sports in general. Who was the last athlete who has had that kind of an effect on a sport? What athlete literally tripled the national TV audience for a sport besides Clark?

Nobody? 

Meanwhile, back in the post-eclipse world of Princeton, the women's lacrosse team heads to Loyola tonight for a game against the seventh-ranked Greyhounds. The game starts at 6, and the forecast for that moment in Baltimore is for 76 and partly cloudy.

That's quite a stark difference from seven days ago, when the craziness was in full bloom — with heavy rains, cold weather, flooding, some snow flurries and then an earthquake and an eclipse. 

Also going back seven days, the forecast for Ivy League women's lacrosse was radically different than it is today. Penn was unbeaten in the league and ranked in the top seven as well, fresh off a win over then-No. 1 Maryland.

Since then, Princeton took down Penn 14-9 in the rain on Sherrerd Field last Wednesday, and then Penn lost at Yale Sunday afternoon. Princeton followed up the Penn win by defeating Columbia 24-12 Saturday.

As a result, the Ivy standings now look like this:

Yale 4-0
Princeton/Harvard 3-1
Cornell/Penn/Brown 2-2
Dartmouth/Columbia 0-4

Suddenly Penn has gone from beating the No. 1 team in the country to needing a strong push over the final three weeks of the regular season just to get into the Ivy League tournament. 

Princeton has five regular season games to go, with the game tonight and a game at Maryland next Wednesday. The three Ivy games to play are at Brown this Saturday (the first game of a women/ men doubleheader), home against Dartmouth next weekend and then at Harvard April 27.

As for the game tonight, Loyola is 11-1 overall and 6-0 in the Patriot League, ahead of three 4-1 teams (Holy Cross, Navy, Army West Point). The Greyhounds have lost only to No. 2 Syracuse.

Princeton has four players in the top 12 in the Ivy League (and top 136 in Division I) in points per game — McKenzie Blake, Grace Tauckus, Jami MacDonald and Haven Dora. Of that group, Dora is the one who is having the biggest breakout year.

Last season, as a freshman, Dora had three goals and three assists. This year, she has 14 goals and 19 assists through 10 games, with at least one goal in eight of the 10 games. And the two games she has not scored in? She had three assists in each. 

Dora had a huge night against Penn last Wednesday, with three goals and four assists for seven points, all of which were career highs. 

Princeton finds itself ranked 17th this week, having moved up only one spot after the Penn win. Tonight's game is the second of three straight Wednesdays against highly ranked opponents. 

Remember - the opening draw is at 6, and it'll be a really nice night in Baltimore.

Total Eclipse Of The Heart

The first eclipse must have really freaked out the people who were alive back then, whenever it was.

Presumably, this was well before a great knowledge of astronomy existed. It probably seemed like it went from day to night to day very quickly, leaving everyone wondering if this would be the new normal.

"Hey, what the heck just happened?"
"No idea. I'm still trying to figure out how to make fire."
"Well, whatever it was, it was strange — though it might make a good song."

That, of course, is Bonnie Tyler's 1983 mega-hit "Total Eclipse Of The Heart," which was her first single and which sold more than six million copies. Who wrote it? The same guy who wrote every wildly creative and out of the ordinary song in the 1970s and 1980s — Jim Steinman, who 1) wrote all of Meat Loaf's songs and 2) was the brother of longtime Columbia sports information director Bill Steinman. 

Ah, but TigerBlog digresses. Did you enjoy the eclipse?

One thought that TigerBlog had regarding the eclipse is this: What would have happened had it been two days earlier? Or one day earlier? 

Think about how many athletic events there were outside over the weekend. Would they have played through the eclipse? Would they have had to take a break? 

There were no Major League Baseball games scheduled yesterday afternoon. The only ESPN+ college event yesterday afternoon was Boston University at Colgate, which started at noon. 

There was one Princeton team who competed yesterday afternoon — the women's golf team, who was the Wolfpack Match Play at North Carolina state. The event itself is a pretty cool one, with eight teams that were all to play three rounds, with five head-to-head singles matches to determine who wins each round, with two matches yesterday and one today. The field includes four teams in the top 51 of the national rankings.

Princeton opened with a loss to Wake Forest, the third-ranked team in the country, yesterday in the early match, which put Princeton into the consolation bracket with a 1:00 start. This would mean prime eclipse time.

So would they keep playing?

TB reached out to Princeton coach Erika DeSanty to see what the answer was, and it was this: "We are!! Yes. We all have glasses."

So there you have it. 

As for the BU-Colgate softball game, TB asked Raiders' Director of Athletics Yariv Amir the same question. Will they keep playing? 

His response was the perfect administrative response: "That's why we started early."

Ah, but what if the game ran long and overlapped with the eclipse? 

"I guess we'll see," Amir said. 

Somewhere in that response was a great punchline. Ultimately, BU won the game before the eclipse started.

TigerBlog walked around the campus yesterday in the early afternoon, and it was a weird phenomenon, almost like the beginning of some apocalyptic horror movie. People were gingerly looking skyward, almost like they were expecting to see space aliens descending, weapons already firing.

Of course, there was humor too. As TB walked past the chapel, he heard one student call to another, and they had this actual exchange, which ended when one pointed to the sky:

"Are you going to watch the eclipse?"
"I guess. Where is it?"
"Up there I guess." 

As for the actual eclipse, TB went upstairs around 3 and found a large crowd of coaches, administrators and athletes in the general area of the front of Jadwin Gym. As you might have expected, it got darker and colder and then lighter and warmer.

It never got as dark as TB thought it would. He was expecting pitch-blackness, and that didn't come close to happening.

And yes, BrotherBlog, he did look through the glasses that he got up on Nassau Street earlier in the day. TB isn't quite sure he really believes the whole "your eyes will be damaged if you look up" but he wasn't tempting things.

If TB read correctly, the next total solar eclipse here will be in 2079, when he'll be approaching 116 years old.

He'll have to see that one from the other side — with his after-life approved glasses, of course.

A Weekend With ESPN+

There will be a total eclipse today.

Of course there will be. Why wouldn't there be? There's been everything else around here of late. Why not an eclipse?

Floods? Check. Crazy winds? Check. Snow flurries? Check.

Oh, and that's nothing. There was an earthquake Friday. An actual earthquake.

TigerBlog was in his car Friday when the earthquake came along, and so he missed the whole thing. Still, an earthquake? After all the other craziness that Mother Nature has thrown around the Princeton area this past week? 

And now an eclipse. TigerBlog found a pretty good eclipse website that says that the event will begin at 2:09:18 in the Princeton area, will peak at 3:24:34 and then end at 4:35:33. This will be a partial solar eclipse, and the next total solar eclipse here will be on May 1 — in the year 2079. 

If you want to know what time the eclipse will peak near you, click HERE.

There will be a total lunar eclipse on March 14, 2025, which will be a small part of March Madness next year. What's the difference between a lunar eclipse and solar eclipse? A solar eclipse is when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. A lunar eclipse is when the Earth passes between the Moon and the Sun. Apparently a lunar eclipse can only happen at night during a full moon.

Anyway, maybe all of this is what happens when there is an April weekend without a men's lacrosse game, something TB can't remember ever happening before in a full season since he's been around the team. 

With no men's lacrosse game to cover, TB spent much of his time this weekend on ESPN+. If you're an Ivy League fan, you can't ask for much more. It's wall-to-wall of pretty much any event you want to see. 

First of all, if you like ESPN+, and odds are good you do, then you really owe a thank you to the video departments at the eight Ivy schools. At Princeton, that means Cody Chrusciel, Dave Turner and Mike Galayda.

It's not easy to broadcast all of the events that are currently being produced in the Ivy League, let alone do them so well. It requires so much administrative and technical work, and, much like the game officials themselves, their work is going best when they're noticed the least.

The growth of the number of broadcasts has also created unprecedented opportunities for play-by-play announcers and color commentators. Many are young. Some are very experienced. Their ability — and in some cases, their homerism — varies, but most are doing at least a credible job. 

TigerBlog watched all of the Princeton-Brown baseball game yesterday on ESPN+, and the announcers were excellent. The play-by-play man was Scott Cordischi, who has been the voice of the Bears in many sports for a long time. The color commentator was named Nick Coit, the sports director at Providence's ABC station and a sideline reporter for Brown football and men's basketball. Like TB said, they were excellent, easy to listen to for nine innings.

One thing TB learned from watching Brown's production was that John Krasinski, the actor, was in the Class of 2001 there. TB had no idea about that — until he saw the Brown institutional spot, many times actually.

Princeton and Brown split the two games of the Saturday doubleheader, and each game lasted more than three hours. The game Sunday, a 4-2 Princeton win, was more of a pitchers' duel between Tiger freshman Sean Episcope (six innings, two runs allowed, seven strikeouts) and Brown junior Santosh Gottam (eight innings, 12 strikeouts). This game moved along at a great pace, taking barely 2:15 to complete.

The Tigers snapped the 2-2 tie in the eighth when Jake Bold tripled in a run and then got another run in the ninth on an RBI double from Tommy Googins. Jacob Faulkner took over from Episcope for the final three innings to get the win. 

It was a big win, potentially at least, for the Tigers, who entered the day fourth in the Ivy standings, one game ahead of Brown. As you know, the top four teams advance to the Ivy League tournament, and the win yesterday gave Princeton a two-game lead over Brown but also the head-to-head tiebreaker should it come to that.

TB also watched some of the Princeton-Harvard softball doubleheader yesterday. It looked cold in Cambridge too; kudos to the fan sitting directly behind home plate who was wearing shorts.

Of course TB also watched some lacrosse, including the Princeton-Columbia women's game and the other Ivy men's games Saturday, (Yale beat Penn, Cornell beat Brown and Harvard beat Dartmouth), as well as a few other men's lacrosse games. Sacred Heart, by the way, thumped Wagner to get to 6-0 in the MAAC.

As for the Princeton women, they rolled past Columbia 24-12, building off the big 14-9 win over Penn from Wednesday night. The Tigers had two players with six points each, as McKenzie Blake had five goals and an assist and Jami MacDonald had three goals and three assists. 

The win left the Tigers at 3-1 in the league and hoping for a Penn win over Yale yesterday, which would have created a four-way tie for first with those three and Harvard. Instead, Yale had a huge win over the Quakers, and now the standings go Yale 4-0, Princeton/Harvard 3-1 and Penn 2-2 and suddenly tied with Cornell and Brown. 

That Yale-Penn game was on ESPNU. TB watched a little of it, but he was more interested in a different game. 

Anyway, enjoy the eclipse. And don't look straight at the sun.

Caitlin Clark, Ali Surace And More

"I'll wear blue. I won't wear the Columbia stuff." - Bob Surace

* 

Did you watch the game the other night?

C'mon. You know what game TigerBlog means. Did you watch it? Odds are good you did.

The game, the NCAA women's basketball regional final between LSU and Iowa if you didn't already guess that, drew an average of 12.5 million viewers. That's more than any of the men's regional finals drew, more than any women's basketball game has ever drawn and, for that matter, more than any World Series game drew last year. Only one NBA Finals game last year did better.

The Iowa-LSU game was the most hyped game in a very long time, in any sport. It put an extraordinary amount of pressure on one player, Caitlin Clark, and did she respond? 

As you know, the answer is that she did. Resoundingly. As in 41 points, 12 assists and seven rebounds. Forty-one points? It was one of the greatest individual performances you'll ever see in a situation like that.

Her long-range shooting is ridiculous, and it's not even the most impressive part of her game. That would be her passing. The way she sees the court, combined with how she shoots? Larry Bird, perhaps? Michael Jordan? Tiny Archibald if you want to go back that far? Oscar Robertson if you go back further? 

She's certainly had as big an impact on the women's game as anyone has had on the men's game. Just look at the ratings.

The best compliment you can get as an athlete is that you make everyone else on your team better, even if you're the team's best player by far. For a player to lead the country in scoring and assists? That's wildly impressive.

The game was about more than basketball, of course. You could write several sociology theses on everything that went on around it. 

TigerBlog watched the game. He was awed at a lot of what he saw, especially that it became as big as it did. He remembers when women's basketball was an afterthought, when there was no national interest, no coverage. Those days are completely gone. 

He's often said that, beyond the wins and losses, the biggest contributions to Princeton Athletics that former women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart and current coach Carla Berube have made is the way that their teams have been embraced by a male audience who for decades did not attend or have any interest in the women's game.

*

Meanwhile, the rain has apparently stopped after it was absolutely horrible here the last few days. TigerBlog commends the weather forecasters for their amazing accuracy of late. The forecast that has appeared 10 days out has been the forecast that has fallen on every game day this spring.

The women's lacrosse team will be in New York City tomorrow, with a forecast of 52 and cloudy, or, translated for the 2024 Tigers, a feeling of sunny and 90. The way the schedule has fallen this year, every home game for the women's lacrosse team has been brutal, especially Wednesday night in the 14-9 win over No. 7 Penn. 

Princeton will be at Columbia (1 pm start) to take on the Lions, who are 0-3 in the league and 3-7 overall after a 16-8 win at Wagner Wednesday night. 

Columbia's leader in caused turnovers is Ali Surace, with 11. Surace? Surace? Why does that name ring a bell? 

Oh yeah, Ali is the daughter of Princeton head football coach Bob Surace. As Bob said to TigerBlog and John Mack at yesterday's monthly department staff meeting, this is "the one time a year I root against Princeton."

He can be forgiven.

*

The weather may be cooperating, but there is not a lot on the schedule in Princeton this weekend. There is home women's tennis today (3) against Columbia and men's tennis Sunday (1) against Cornell, with the opposite schedule that has the men at Columbia today and the women at Cornell Sunday. 

There is home women's lightweight rowing against Ratcliffe tomorrow (9) and home men's volleyball tonight (7) against NJIT. The men's golf team hosts its invitational tomorrow and Sunday. 

Everyone else is on the road or, in the case of women's open rowing, men's lightweight rowing, women's golf and men's lacrosse, a weekend off.

 The complete schedule is HERE.

*

Back at women's basketball and a male audience, the most recent women's basketball game that TB watched was not in the NCAA tournament. It was yesterday afternoon, Game 1 of the EuroCup finals between the London Lions and Besiktas, a Turkish team, in Istanbul.

If you recall, TB was there when London began its run through the EuroCup back in December. The Lions' roster includes Megan Gustaffson, who was the all-time leading scorer at Iowa before Clark came along.

The team also has Princeton grad Abby Meyers, the 2022 Ivy League Player of the Year who played in the WNBA last summer and who is in her first professional season in Europe.

The EuroCup  playoffs are home-and-home, two-game total points competitions. Besiktas won Game 1 75-68, meaning that London needs to win Game 2 and by at least eight points to win the championship. If it's a seven-point London win, then they'll play a five-minute overtime and so on.

The arena in Istanbul was packed for Game 1, and the Copper Box Arena in London figures to be likewise for the second game on April 10. As TB watched the game, he saw what he saw when he attended the game at the Copper Box — an audience that had a large male contingent.

*

The EuroCup for women is only 20 years old. It literally didn't exist at the turn of the century.

The NCAA women's basketball tournament goes back to 1982. Who was the first winner? Louisiana Tech? Who was the other team in the final? Cheyney State.

Can you name the point guard for the Lady Techsters that year? She made the all-tournament team. That would be Kim Mulkey. 

* 

Predicting the basketball tournaments from here out, TigerBlog goes with South Carolina-Iowa in the final and a South Carolina win and UConn-Purdue in the men's final, with a Purdue win. 

Winning In The Rain

The Princeton men's lacrosse program began in the 1880s, took a break from 1894 through 1921 and then has been around since.

In all that time, there have been 15 players who have reached 100 career goals. The most recent was Coulter Mackesy, who did so against Harvard two weeks ago.

The Princeton women's lacrosse program has been around since the early 1970s. Last night, in a big 14-9 win over Penn, McKenzie Blake became the 25th 100-goal scorer in program history.  Like Mackesy, Blake reached the 100 mark as a junior.

Also like Mackesy, Blake got there on a cold, rainy day. For the Princeton women's lacrosse team this year, that has been pretty much the standard.

Five times the Tigers have played at home. Five times it has rained.

Last night's game against Penn was even delayed by a bit of lightning. That's a first this year. 

There have been two lacrosse games in two nights on Sherrerd Field. When the schedule was announced, you could have been forgiven for thinking that these two games on April 2 and April 3 would be played on gentle spring evenings. 

Hah. Far from it. There was rain. There was cold. There was wind. It was unpleasant in many ways — except the results. 

For the men, it was an important 12-10 win over Lehigh. For the women? It was huge. It was easily the biggest win to date for second-year head coach Jenn Cook.

Penn came into the game with a record of 8-1 overall and 2-0 in the Ivy League. The Quakers had most recently taken down Maryland 13-9. Where were the Terps ranked at the time? How about No. 1?

The Quakers were ranked seventh this week. Princeton was ranked 18th and had split its first two Ivy League games. 

Ah, but as former The College of New Jersey men's basketball coach and longtime TB favorite Donnie Marsh always said: "Anyone can win a big game. The hardest thing to do is win the game after the big game."

Is that what happened to Penn? Were the Quakers also looking ahead to a game at Yale Saturday? The Bulldogs defeated Princeton earlier this season and were the last unbeaten team in Division I until a 16-8 setback to Boston College this past weekend. 

Could Penn actually be looking past Princeton? No chance. Do not even think about saying that.

Princeton, after all, is the standard by which Ivy League women's lacrosse teams are judged. And Penn-Princeton? Yeah, no. This one had Penn's full attention.

Blake's accomplishment came early in the game. Perhaps the biggest moment came as time was running out in the first half, when Kari Buonanno scored to tie it at the break. 

That goal gave the Tigers the momentum. Princeton scored first in the second half and never trailed again. 

The MVP of the night? There were lots of choices.

Blake came in with 99 goals and came out with 104 after her five-goal evening. Haven Dora had a seven-point night with three goals and four assists.

The defense was excellent all night, holding Penn well below its 13-goal average. The Player of the Game, though, might have been sophomore goalie Amelia Hughes, who made 11 big saves on the night against the powerful Quakers. 

Princeton, suddenly, is 2-1 in the league, tied with Penn, Harvard and Cornell and with wins over the Quakers and Big Red. Yale sits alone on the top at 3-0, which makes it clear which team Princeton is rooting for Saturday in New Haven. 

The end of the game saw the Tigers swarm their goalie, but this was more than just a key mid-season win. 

This was a team that is learning to win and looking to take its place in the great history of Princeton women's lacrosse. There's no telling how important this win will be for the Tigers as they move forward, which for them means four more league games (at Columbia this Saturday and later on at Brown, home against Dartmouth and at Harvard) and two more non-league games (at Loyola and home against Maryland).

Will the weather improve for the Princeton women? It has to, right?

It may have been brutal last night on Sherrerd Field, but when it was over, the sun was shining on the Tigers.

The Passing Of Larry Lucchino

Tonight will be the fifth home game of the season for the Princeton women's lacrosse team — and the fifth time it will rain. 

If ever a team deserves a moment in the sun, it's the Tiger women. Rain or not, though, it'll still be a big game, as the Tigers host Penn, who knocked off No. 1 Maryland last week, in a huge Ivy game. 

The opening draw is at 7. 

TB was going to write more about tonight's game, until he saw the news yesterday of the passing of Larry Lucchino. A member of the one the most legendary teams Princeton has ever fielded in any sport, Lucchino went on to a career as a Major League Baseball executive that will eventually land him in the Hall of Fame.

"It's so disappointing that it didn't happen before he passed away," Gary Walters said yesterday.

In many ways, Lucchino is the personification of one of his greatest achievements, the construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, for which he was the driving force when he worked for team owner Edward Bennett Williams.  

Today, Camden Yards is the model for almost every new baseball stadium, a modernization of the classic old ballparks long gone. Back then? It was something that had never been done before, after the "cookie-cutter" era personified by Philadelphia's Veterans' Stadium, Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium and Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium.

Like Camden Yards, Lucchino himself was a cross between a bygone era and a modern world. The Princeton he attended changed almost immediately after he left it, when women were admitted, and the Lucchino who went on to great professional success was a cutting age man who embraced change.

When TB heard the news about Lucchino, the first person he thought of was Walters. The two met on their basketball recruiting trips back in 1963. They were Pennsylvania East and Pennsylvania West, Walters from Reading and Lucchino from Pittsburgh, and they were great friends from the day that they sat next to each other at that Princeton-Penn game in Dillon Gym until Lucchino's passing yesterday.

They also played the same position, point guard. For their three years together on the varsity, Walters was the starter and Lucchino pushed him every day trying to take the job. 

"I have nothing but admiration for him," Walters said. "He went out every day and gave me his best. Every single day. He gave me nothing for free."

Lucchino and Walters were sophomores in 1965, when Bill Bradley led the team to the NCAA Final Four. In their senior year of 1967, Princeton rose to as high as No. 3 in the national rankings.

At graduation that year, Lucchino was voted by his class as the top all around man. He went from Princeton to Yale Law School and then to Washington, D.C., where he worked for Edward Bennett Williams, the owner of, among things, the Baltimore Orioles.

After leaving the Orioles, he became president of the Boston Red Sox, with a fan base that hadn't experienced a World Series title since long before any of its current members had been born. You had to go back to 1918 to find the last Red Sox championship. Lucchino rebuilt an organization — beginning with his hire of a young, unknown GM named Theo Epstein — and now the team has won titles in 2004, 2007 and 2018.

Along the way, Lucchino beat cancer several times, first lymphoma and the prostate cancer and renal cancer. 

That's Lucchino's bio. For who the man was, TB turns it over to Walters, who, in the 30 minutes he and TB spoke yesterday, ran the gamut of emotions, from tears to laughter, as you might expect:

"At the basketball banquet my senior year, my whole speech was about Larry's competitiveness. It talks about him as a person. He was tenacious, a fighter, competitive, principled, a leader. He was able to see the big picture and then was able to get all of the people in the organization to fulfill their roles so that the greater purpose could be achieved. His life is reflected in his achievements. Camden Yards. He's the one who broke the "cookie-cutter" mold. Winning with the Red Sox. I think people had given up on that ever happening. 

"He beat cancer. I remember in 1986, when he was about 40, he came up to Boston with lymphoma. They put him in a sealed tent so no germs could get in. Back then, lymphoma was like a death sentence, but he beat it. The next year, I organized a 20th reunion for our 1967 team, just so he'd be there. I was so glad he got to have that experience, and then he kept going.

"We could make each other laugh. If you wanted him to laugh, the best way was to get me to laugh. He was just a great all-around person. He was voted that by our class, and he never changed.

"I will miss him terribly."