Hello From Somewhere

Hello from Indiana.

Or is that Ohio? Or Kentucky?

No matter. TigerBlog flew out yesterday for these parts, where he has two stops to make. The first is the NCAA women's rowing championships, which begin today outside of Cincinnati in Bethel, Ohio, which isn't too far from the Kentucky border.

In fact, most of the teams are actually staying in Kentucky for the event, which runs through Sunday.

Once that ends, TB will be off to Indianapolis, where he will participate in the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee meetings. The drive from Bethel to Indianapolis is less than two hours, or at least that's what Google Maps has to say. 

Why Indianapolis? It's the headquarters of the NCAA. 

TB's first trip to Indianapolis was back in 1996. Does he even need to tell you why? 

If he does, that was the site of the Princeton-UCLA game in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, at the old RCA Dome, which no longer stands. It was during that trip that TB first went to the famed steakhouse St. Elmo's; he's happy to see that there is a stop there on the agenda for the meetings.

That trip to St. Elmo's, by the way, ended when he pulled out his old Princeton credit card. Since the team had just beaten UCLA, pretty much anything that connected you to Princeton earned you instant first class treatment, with a bit of awe mixed in as well. It was a fun time.

The first thing TB did when he saw the meeting times was to look to see if the Indiana Fever had a home game while he was there. As it turns out, the answer to that is no. 

He also checked out the possibility of going to see a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, someplace he's never been. That was before he realized that it was more than four hours from Indianapolis to Chicago, which would be like driving from Princeton to Cornell for a non-Princeton event.

Actually, there is a bit of a Princeton connection to the Cubs weekend series. The team is hosting the Reds, whose play-by-play man on television is former Tiger basketball announcer John Sadak.

Oh well. He'll go to Wrigley one of these days.

Back in Princeton, the vibe on campus is the strangest one it gets all year. 

Just one week ago, Reunions were in full bloom. How many people attended? 

According to princeton.edu, the number was somewhere around 25,000. That's an extraordinary number of people, all of whom were singing and dancing well into the early hours.

This is also from princeton.edu:

Alumni have returned to Old Nassau from as far as Australia and Thailand — many with families in tow —  to spend time with classmates, visit old stomping grounds, participate in panel discussions and community service projects, and enjoy a host of live music, events and lectures.

Among the major classes present are the Class of 1974, the grandparent class of this year’s graduates, celebrating its 50th reunion; the Class of 1999, the parent class, celebrating its 25th; the Class of 2014, celebrating its 10th reunion; and the Class of 1959, marking its 65th.

The sprint from Reunions (and the Gary Walters PVC Award Banquet) through the prom, Class Day and finally Commencement is an overwhelming one. There are people everywhere. There is noise everywhere. There is laughter everywhere.

And then, in a blink, it's over. Graduation comes and goes. Everyone packs up and goes home. 

Suddenly, the campus goes from vibrant to deserted, just like that. 

As TB walked around the campus this week, he saw the remains of what had just been there — tents that still stood with no people in them, garbage that was being picked up, orange and black balloons, a handful of recent graduates in class jacket who were posing for the last pictures outside of Nassau Hall. 

What was missing was noise. It becomes eerily quiet, eerily quickly. As TB said, it's a strange dynamic.

 Princeton in the summer is different than most schools, since there are no summer classes. There will just be a handful of students around, and a lot of camps and conferences. 

TB walked into Jadwin from the parking garage with women's basketball assistant coach Lauren Battista the other morning. They talked about the summer recruiting schedule and how hectic it can get. 

Eventually, TB reminded her that next season will be here in a blink. Or, at the very least, something resembling a blink, and the campus will return to its busy self.

For now, it's off to the rowing in Ohio and the meetings back in Indianapolis. 

Have a great weekend.

Rowing For Championships

Little Leon Carr made his appearance in this world over the weekend.

He is the first-born for Colleen and Elliott Carr, his mother the assistant executive director for events and administration and his father one of TigerBlog's colleagues here in the Office of Athletic Communications. 

Last night was Leon's first night at home, something that can be quite scary for the new parents. In TB's case, that meant that he got zero sleep that first night, which featured the words "he can't possibly still be hungry" over and over and over. As it turns out, knowing his son the way he does, perhaps TB would have gotten a better night's sleep all those years ago if the baby had been offered buffalo chicken wings.

Elliott is one of the most-liked people who has ever worked in Jadwin Gym, by the way. This is one of those "good things happen to good people" situations.

The first picture that TB saw of Leon was somewhat predictable. It had a shot of the baby shortly after he arrived, and yet there was already a basketball with him in his little crib. 

The Carrs picked a good time of year to have their first child. 

First of all, you definitely want to have a baby when the weather is nice. Otherwise, you're stuck inside, and the walls seem to close in on you (TB would imagine — both of his kids were born in the summer).

Second, if you work in college athletics, there aren't any in the summer. 

For Princeton, the academic year ended with graduation Tuesday, but the athletic year still has some huge events left. In fact, there are still six teams that have athletes who are competing, with national championships on the line.

The men's and women's track and field teams will be represented at the NCAA championships in Eugene, Ore., beginning this coming Wednesday. 

The other four of those six teams will wrap up their seasons this weekend with the national championships in rowing. There will be three who are doing just off the Princeton campus, while the other will be in Ohio.

Close to home will be the IRA national championships, which will be held on Mercer Lake. If you can believe what Google Maps has to say, that's a 17-minute drive from Princeton's campus.

Among the teams who will be there will be the Princeton women's lightweights, men's lightweights and men's heavyweights. The racing begins early tomorrow (8 am, to be exact), with the finals to be held Sunday.

The complete schedule, and any other information you could possibly want to know, for the three days can be found HERE.

The pre-race rankings have all three Princeton teams right in the mix. If you go by first varsity 8, then the heavyweights are ranked third, behind Washington and Brown, while the men's lights are also third, behind Harvard and Penn. In fact, in the men's lightweight first varsity 8 rankings, the top six teams are all Ivy League teams.

The women's lightweight team is ranked No. 1 and is chasing a fourth-straight national title.

The finals are Sunday, with the lightweight women at 10:20, lightweight men at 10:40 and the heavyweight men at 11.

As for the open women, they'll be rowing in Bethel, Ohio, which is close to Cincinnati, at the NCAA championships. HERE is all of the information on that event.

Princeton is the No. 3 seed in the first varsity 8 (behind Texas and Stanford), is the No. 6 seed in the second varsity 8 and is the third seed in the varsity 4.

The first varsity 8 is unbeaten on the season, with its most recent event a first place finish at the Ivy League championships. The first NCAA race for any of the Princeton boats will be in the first varsity 8 opening round tomorrow at 10:12 am, when the Tigers race in Heat 3, along with Boston U, Penn, Rutgers, Michigan and Jacksonville.

The other Princeton boats all row shortly after that.

The semifinals will be Saturday morning. The three finals will be Sunday morning, with the races at 9:26 (varsity 4), 10 (second varsity 8) and 10:24 (first varsity 8).

The Great Bill Walton

 This is from 2019:

It was back in 1995 or 1996 that Bill Carmody, still an assistant coach for the Princeton men's basketball team, came into TigerBlog's office and announced that "the greatest college basketball player of all-time is in the men's room."

It took TigerBlog a second to remember that Nate Walton was a Princeton recruit and so his father, Bill Walton, could have been in Jadwin Gym. It was only once he thought of who the greatest college basketball player of all time probably was that he put two and two together.

You can make a serious case that Bill Walton is the greatest college basketball player ever. Playing in the early 1970s, when freshmen were still ineligible for varsity, Walton won three national Player of the Year awards while leading UCLA to the 1972 and 1973 NCAA titles, including a 21-for-22, 44-point night against Memphis in the 1973 final. As a senior in 1974, UCLA lost four times, including having its 88-game winning streak stopped by Notre Dame 71-70 and then falling to North Carolina State 80-77 in two overtimes in the NCAA semifinals, ending a run of seven-straight championships for the Bruins, who would win again in 1975.

TigerBlog watched all three of those games on TV. The game against Memphis was just a case of sheer domination. The Notre Dame game was high on drama as the streak ended. The game against North Carolina State - led by David Thompson, who was basically Julius Erving and Michael Jordan combined before he hurt his knees - is one of the two best in college history, along with Duke's 104-103 win over Kentucky in the 1992 East final.

Walton would lead the Portland Trailblazers to the 1977 NBA title, and the 1977-78 Blazers started out 50-10 before Walton broke his foot, something that hindered him the rest of his career. Included in that start was a 107-106 win over the Knicks at the Garden on Dec. 10, a game TB attended.

Walton was big and strong and the best passing big man who ever played. Were it not for the injuries to his foot, he would be remembered in the same way that Bill Russell is as an NBA player.

UCLA, by the way, would win only one NCAA title since 1975, and that would be in 1995. The next season, 1996, saw Princeton knock off the Bruins 43-41 in the opening round. Nate Walton was a high school senior then.

Nate would be a first-team All-Ivy League selection after leading Princeton's most improbable Ivy championship team ever, the 2001 Tigers, who were led by a rookie head coach (John Thompson III) and a revamped lineup after Chris Young signed a professional baseball contract, Spencer Gloger transferred out and a few other projected rotation players weren't able to play.

Despite that, Princeton beat Penn 68-52 in Jadwin Gym on the final day of the regular season to win the title. On that night, where a Princeton win meant the championship and a Penn win would have meant a tie and a playoff game, Walton had one of the greatest stat lines of all time - nine points, eight rebounds, seven assists, six steals.

As TB looks back on all of the athletes he's known at Princeton, he'll always have a special fondness for Nate Walton, a natural leader who made every player on the court better, all while also having a great sense of humor about it all.

Clearly, Walton had a great experience at Princeton. And clearly his father is extremely proud of that.

If you saw Princeton's 67-66 win over Arizona State last weekend, you heard Bill Walton's commentary on the game. Much of it centered on Nate and his time here, and the lifelong respect that grew out of it for his father as far as Princeton and Princeton basketball are concerned.

Bill Walton passed away over the weekend. He was 71 years old.

He was as much a larger than life figure as anyone who has ever entered TigerBlog's orbit. One story that TB didn't mention in his piece in 2019 was about the time that Walton once left his gloves in TB's office after one of Nate's games.

Bill called and emailed and confirmed that he would be picking them up prior to the next game. The gloves made up about five percent of the time he was speaking. The rest? That would be anything and everything, with a running commentary of pretty much any subject that popped into his head.

He was a fascinating person with interests that spanned pretty much every corner of human existence. What you saw on TV is what TB saw in his office. 

He was all of that, and, again, perhaps the greatest college basketball player ever. To everyone who knew him, especially his family, TigerBlog sends his deepest condolences. 

And for Nate, TigerBlog doesn't have the words. It's unlikely anyone does. 

TB is thinking about you, and the giant man you've lost. He was ultra proud of you — something he made clear that day he came to get his gloves.

A Day To Marvel

TigerBlog Jr. completed the "Memorial Day Murphy Challenge" this weekend.

If you don't know, it's a Memorial Day honoring of the late Navy Seal Lt. Michael P. Murphy. To complete it, you have to do a one-mile run and then do 100 pull ups, 200 push ups and 300 air squats before running another mile. 

TigerBlog is proud of his son and his friends, who documented their efforts, which ended with a jump into a northern Virginia lake. It took some effort and dedication, and it was for about as worthy a cause as there is.

Miss TigerBlog ’22 had her own physical fitness effort this weekend, sort of. Unlike her brother, MTB went for a walk.

Hers happened to be down Elm Drive, as she participated in the P-Rade Saturday. 

TigerBlog took both of his kids to numerous P-Rades when they were little. And a bonfire if one happened to occur. And games. And camps. And pretty much anything.

Thinking about them now, it's hard to believe that they were ever little, but they did spend a great deal of childhoods on the Princeton campus, going to more than their share of traditional events before they ever realized their significance.

Now that MTB is an alum, there is almost no Princetoniana that she doesn't know about or embrace. It's part of what being a graduate is all about.

As such, she, like so many thousands of others, spent the weekend back on campus, enjoying the gatherings during the day and the festivities at night. Among the photos she sent was this one:

In case you're wondering, that's, from the left: women's lacrosse alum Shea Smith, women's lacrosse alum MTB, women's basketball alum Lexi Wieger and women's lacrosse alum Kate Mulham.

TigerBlog can't express to you how much he loves that his daughter had the experience she had at Princeton and how much he loves that she now gets to reap the benefits of being an alum, and an athletic alum at that. 

If you recall, TB wrote this after his daughter's graduation: 

"Ultimately, he guesses the main emotion was marvel, if that is an emotion. He sat there and watched his daughter, and he marveled at the magnitude of what she had done her at Princeton. He smiled. He laughed. He also beamed. He even cried a little. He was in awe. Mostly, he marveled."

He brings this up now because today is a day for so many others to experience what he did two years ago. It's Graduation Day, Commencement 2024. 

For the graduates, congratulations. For the athletic grads, well, that's a whole other level of respect.

Every single one of them could have chosen an easier path, either on the athletic or academic side, or both. Instead, they chose to come to Princeton to compete and to learn, and the balance of those two things is not easy.

TB saw it first hand with his daughter. She shed her share of tears along the way. She had her stressful moments. There is no Princeton athletic graduate who didn't. 

They all could have given up. They all could have mailed something in. 

And yet, there they are today, in the stadium, getting ready to collect a diploma that will help define them for the rest of their life. It's the end prize of an experience that will shape them for the rest of their lives. 

To the parents, you also made your sacrifices. Maybe you turned down scholarship money. You likely put vacations or a new car on the back burner to get your young athletes to where they went. 

It's likely that you, like TigerBlog, misses those days greatly. It's very likely you'll miss the times at Princeton, when they played, when you met the parents of their teammates, when you got to build relationships with their friends, when you saw your child in the orange and black.

It's also very likely that you fielded some tearful phone calls or had to help them stay grounded. It's very likely that their tears or their uncertainty crunched you to your own core, and yet you were there when they needed you, in whatever way that ways.

And now they, like TB's daughter, have reached the finish line, a glorious, wonderful finish line. You better believe that TB knows how special all of that is. 

So take your own bows today. You've earned it as well. 

The emotions of that day two years ago have never gone away for TigerBlog. 

They won't for you either.

Today is their day to graduate. It's also your day to marvel.

The Best Old Place Of All

A massive thunderstorm came through these parts yesterday morning. 

TigerBlog loves a good thunderstorm, though not everyone does. An old friend of his used to hide under the bed when one came along.

Hopefully the storm yesterday is the last of the wet weather for the weekend, he said alliteratively. While it's true that Reunions goes on rain or shine and that there have been more than a few really muddy ones, it's obviously much better when it's not soaked.

The forecast is encouraging at least. 

The weather should be pretty much perfect today at noon, when the Tiger Fan Fest returns to the front of Jadwin Gym. There's more information HERE.

It also doesn't figure to be raining tomorrow at 2, when the P-Rade commences. TB loves the P-Rade more than a thunderstorm. 

For someone who didn't actually attend Princeton, TB is very drawn to the way the University is able to celebrate itself. For starters, there's a lot to celebrate and a long history to draw on, but then again, that's also true of his alma mater in West Philadelphia — and there's nothing there that's in the same ballpark as what happens here.

Fortunately, Miss TigerBlog did the hard work of being a Princeton engineering student, presumably for the education but possibly, as TB likes to think, so that he could add the suffix "P’22" to his name and feel even more like a part of things. 

The unofficial beginning of Reunions, at least in the Department of Athletics, is the Gary Walters Princeton Varsity Club Awards Banquet, which took place last night in Jadwin Gym.

The first part was the cocktail hour, during which there were pictures, hugs, smiles and laughter. Then it was time for dinner and the main program.

The top awards were presented, with the biggest of those the Roper Trophy to the top senior male athlete and the Von Kienbusch Award for the top senior female athlete. This is never an easy choice, which is a sign of just how strong Princeton Athletics has always been. 

In this case, the big winners were NCAA men's fencing champion Tristan Szapary and women's basketball's three-time Ivy League tournament Most Outstanding Player Kaitlyn Chen. For his part, TigerBlog was glad to see that Chen's teammate, Ellie Mitchell, was recognized as a finalist for the Von Kienbusch Award.

More than anything else, the banquet is a celebration of all the graduating senior athletes, a group of primarily 18- and 19-year-olds who came to Princeton unsure of how they'd fit in and who went down vastly different paths to get to this point. 

Yes, it's nice to honor the award recipients, but this is for everyone who didn't give up when giving up might have been the easy thing to do. That's why there are so many smiles during the cocktail hour, and that's why TB has always thought the absolute best moment of each of these banquets comes when each senior is honored with an action picture at the end.

Some thought they'd be here a year ago. Others only competed for three years. 

Some were four-year starters who never missed a day with injury. Others were part of an unlucky group that couldn't seem to stay out of the training room.

There were high school All-Americans and top recruits. There were walk-ons. There was everything in between. 

They all had their own unique experience. Looking for a commonality? 

They will all draw on that experience for the rest of their lives. TB has seen it through the decades here, and he's not the only one. For instance, he's always loved this quote: 

"Most of you will go on to careers and lives that will take you far from where we are currently gathered. Whatever path you take, I'm pretty confident that you too will remember Princeton University the way I do, as a place that challenged you every day, improved you every day, made you work as hard as you could to achieve and ultimately left you very much changed from the person you were when you arrived here."

Whose words are those? 

That would be the man for whom the banquet is named — Gary Walters.

To all of the senior athletes, TB wishes you the best. 

And to everyone who will be on campus this weekend, have a great time. This is, after all, the Best Old Place Of All.

It's Banquet Night

Apparently, TigerBlog isn't the only one who doesn't like raccoons.

Remember the story about the raccoons in the Franklin Field press box during a men's lacrosse game that TB shared a week ago? Well, afterwards, he heard from a bunch of people who mentioned that their take on raccoons goes from "they're kind of freaky looking" to "they scare the heck out of me" to the best response: "I. Hate. Raccoons." 

That last one doesn't leave room for equivocation.

TigerBlog actually found a Wikipedia page entitled "List Of Fictional Raccoons." Seriously. Click HERE for it. 

While reading that page, TB learned that the mascot for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid was a raccoon named "Roni," which is "raccoon" in the Iroquois language.  

Is this a cute mascot? 

Ah, but one of the responses he got was different than the rest. It came from Sue Tucker, who has, in all likelihood, seen more Princeton sporting events than you have.

Sue is the team videographer for a few sports here and has been for many years. She's traveled to so many away games that there's no way she knows exactly what that number would be.

At the recent Ivy League men's lacrosse tournament, she filmed Princeton's semifinal win over Yale, drove all the way back to New Jersey to film a high school game and then drove all the way back to Ithaca for Princeton's win over Penn in the final.

That's dedication.

TigerBlog knew Sue's father Lou, who filmed Princeton men's basketball games when TB first started traveling with the team. In fact, TB was on the bus one late night when Lou, seated behind TB, fell asleep leaning against a cooler, leading Pete Carril to walk by, wake him up and say "Yo, you can sleep anywhere you want on this bus. You can sleep in the john if you like. But you can't sleep on my beer."

Yes. Things were way different back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Anyway, Sue reached out to TB to correct one thing about the raccoon story. TB wrote that he was the only one in the press box that day, but no, Sue was there too.

In fact, this is what she said: 

By the way - I was a witness to the racoon event you mentioned in a recent blog. You were to my right on the radio. I was at midfield shooting game film. I do recall the size of the raccoons. Hadn't thought of that for quite awhile!

So that's the whole raccoon story for now. 

Seguing, while there are still athletic events to be contested for Princeton teams this academic year, tonight is the Gary Walters PVC Awards Banquet.

It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone. The banquet is always the start of a breathtaking sprint of banquet, Reunions, Class Day and the Commencement. 

The campus will just feel different for the next few days. It'll be packed with people for something so special, and, because Princeton engenders a lifelong loyalty that is astonishing, something that is not replicated anywhere else to TB's knowledge.

The banquet has grown from its origins with a handful of people to something that will draw nearly 1,000 people. It's a time to give out departmental awards, including some that have already been announced, like the Class of 1967 Citizen-Athlete Award, which will go to Stu Francis of the Class of 1974:

J. Stuart (“Stu”) Francis ’74, a captain and Ivy champion for Princeton golf, accomplished businessman, and dedicated volunteer and advocate for sport and the arts, is this year’s Class of 1967 PVC Citizen-Athlete Award recipient, presented by the Princeton Varsity Club for selfless and noble contributions to sport and society. Francis will be honored at the Gary Walters ’67 PVC Awards Banquet on Thursday, May 23, in Jadwin Gymnasium.

You can read more about Stu HERE.

The Marvin Bressler Award winner is Dr. Mike Gross: 

Dr. Mike Gross, who leads Princeton’s sports psychology services and has been an invaluable resource for Tiger teams and student-athletes, has been named the recipient of the 2024 Marvin Bressler Award which is presented to that member of the Princeton family who, through heartfelt support of the University's student-athletes and coaches, best embodies a belief in the lifelong lessons taught by competition and athletics as a complement to the overall educational mission.

And you can read more about Mike HERE.

There are also the awards for the student-athletes, all of which have had finalists announced. You can see all that on the webpage.

Mostly, it's about the seniors, the ones who are about to take their Princeton diplomas and head out down the long road of being alums. The audience tonight will be filled with their parents and families, to be sure, but also to an army of athletic alums throughout the decades, all of whom benefited from the same experience as Princeton Tigers in whatever form it took.

A Wild Ivy Baseball Tournament

TigerBlog was right, unfortunately, in his Ivy League baseball tournament prediction.

He said that the ultimate winner of the event would be one of the two teams who won on Day 1, and that's how it turned out. 

In the beginning, the two teams who won their first games were Cornell (over Princeton) and Penn (over Columbia). In the end, it was Penn over Cornell in Game 6 and Game 7, going the distance for an ILT repeat for the Quakers.

It's nearly impossible in baseball to lose your first game in a double-elimination event and have enough pitching to come all the way back. The numbers clearly support that.

If you look at the last two years of NCAA regionals, you have 64 teams who lost their first game. How many of those teams ended up winning and advancing to the Super Regionals? 

That would be one. 

In 2022, none of the 32 teams who lost Game 1 advanced. A year ago, 31 of the 32 did not. Who did? Southern Miss.

And whom did Southern Miss beat twice to get through? Penn.

TB was right about the fact that the teams that won Game 1 would meet in the final. He was, of course, wrong in his assumption that the final would take place at Columbia.

If you missed this, the Lions were the top seed and therefore the host. At the same time, last week was very, very rainy in these parts, and field maintenance issues forced the tournament to be relocated to Montclair State University's Yogi Berra Stadium.

By the way, if you think of Yogi Berra as just a comical figure, did you know that he was wounded on Omaha Beach on D-Day? 

As for Princeton in the Ivy tournament, the Tigers opened with a 9-7 loss to Cornell, way back when at Columbia. The Big Red had a 7-2 lead before Princeton tied it, only to see Cornell come back and score two late runs for the win.

Not that Princeton was hurting for clutch hits in that game. Matt Scannell and Kyle Vinci both hit massive home runs, and Jake Kernodle tied it in the seventh with a two-out double. 

Now facing elimination, Princeton gave the ball to Jacob Faulkner, a unanimous first-team All-Ivy pitcher. The task was to stay alive by taking down Columbia, who had won the league title by five full games over the second-place Tigers.

It's a challenge for a coach who has one ace pitcher to know what the perfect time to use him is, when to get him out, when to let him go, how to rest everyone else. It's not an easy choice. You could make a case for not starting Faulkner at all, because you're limiting him in all likelihood to one appearance, but if you don't start him in an elimination game, then you may never use him at all.

Princeton coach Scott Bradley has taken the Tigers to multiple NCAA tournaments in his long career. He certainly knows what he's doing. This might have been his best coaching job, given all of the injuries, especially to his pitching staff, that he had to juggle all year. 

His decision was to start his ace in Game 2, and Faulkner responded by going all nine innings for the first time in his career, allowing three earned runs in a 16-6 win while improving to 8-1 on the year, with four saves as well. Kernodle and Caden Shapiro both homered in the game, which was a Princeton celebration start to finish.

You can see for yourself:

Columbia, 17-4 during the league season, was the first team out.

The second game Saturday was supposed to be the winners' bracket game between Penn and Cornell, and Princeton was to face the loser of that one. What happened next was quite surprising.

Instead of having a second game Saturday at Columbia, the Penn-Cornell game was scrapped — and then Montclair State became the sight for the rest of the games. Cornell beat Penn, and then Penn came right back to eliminate Princeton 9-4. Scannell and Shaprio both hit another home run, but the Quakers rallied for three runs in the seventh and three in the eighth to take it.

In the end, Penn would advance, beating Cornell twice Monday.

TigerBlog had the right winning scenario. He would never have imagined the right location for it. 

As for the Tigers, they gave, as Pete Carril often said, "a good account of themselves" as they fought to the last out of the last inning. 

And, of course, that's all you can ask.

Four Exclamation Points

If you haven't noticed, Caitlin Clark is selling out every arena where she and the Indiana Fever have been playing so far on the young season. 

TigerBlog continues to try to find a comparable situation to the Clark phenomenon. If you have one, let TB know.

Obviously, the women's college sport that draws the highest ratings on television is basketball. With Clark's presence with Iowa this past year, the women's final outdrew the men's, as you may recall.

What sport is in second place for women in TV ratings? That would be softball.

And, just like in basketball, the Women's College World Series outdraws its baseball counterpart, and it's not particularly close. There's a huge audience for the sport, and this is when those ratings start to skyrocket. 

Oh, and in the interest of complete honesty, softball ratings on ESPN destroy the ratings for men's lacrosse by pretty much two-to-one.

Speaking of softball, TigerBlog's new friend Hoot and his Baylor team are still playing beyond the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

As you hopefully recall, "Hoot" is Baylor assistant coach Steve Johnigan. TB reached out to him last week when the Princeton softball team was placed with Baylor in the same regional, the one that was played in Lafayette, Louisiana.

TB was struck by the nickname on his bio and asked him about it. Hoot got back to TB quickly, and so, if Princeton couldn't win, TB was now rooting for Baylor.

Okay, maybe he and Hoot aren't quite buddies or anything. Still, TB did email him Sunday night, after the Bears had won the final game of the regional against Louisiana, by the score of 4-3. This came after Louisiana had forced the if-necessary game with a 13-0 win in the first game Sunday.

Next up for the Bears will be a Super Regional at fourth-ranked Florida. 

Hoot thanked TB for the good wishes. He also said this: 

"Wow! What competitors you guys are! Really got after it yesterday! You should be proud!"

If a team ever deserved an email where every sentence ended with an exclamation point, it was the Princeton softball team this weekend. No, the Tigers didn't advance, but it's not always about that.

Princeton had to face the No. 13 Ragin' Cajuns in Game 1 and fell 8-0, but the Tigers hardly went quietly in Louisiana.

To stay alive, Princeton had to come back against Ole Miss in the losers' bracket elimination game Saturday afternoon. This is Ole Miss of the Southeastern Conference, Ole Miss who was playing in its eighth-straight NCAA tournament.

So what happened? Cassidy Shaw threw five scoreless innings and Brielle Wright closed it out for a 4-2 win. For Wright, it was career save No. 11, which puts her in sole possession of the Ivy League record. Julia Dumais had a two-RBI hit with two outs in the fifth as the Tigers snapped a scoreless tie to go up 3-0.

The prize for that victory was a short rest and another elimination game, this time against Louisiana. It would be a much different game this time.

Wright started the game and finished the game. Shaw pitched in the middle. In the end, the game went eight innings before the Ragin' Cajuns eked out a 2-1 win. 

In case you forgot, Louisiana came into the regional as the No. 13 team in the country. The game was played in front of 1,562 hostile fans in Louisiana's ballpark — well, maybe hostile is too strong; how about really nice, friendly and welcoming but devoted to their team.

Yes. That effort is worth of the four exclamation points.

Princeton finished the season at 30-18, with another Ivy title and Ivy tournament title. The last time an Ivy school had won a game at an NCAA regional was back in 2012. 

Princeton is now 9-24 all-time in NCAA games. If that doesn't seem great, consider that every other team in the league is a combined 4-32.

That's Seven Straight

Well this was a crazy weekend for Princeton Athletics. 

How crazy? It'll take TigerBlog a few days to get to everything. 

First, he'd like to start with the least crazy outcome there was: Princeton won the Ivy League women's opening rowing championship.

It happened on the Cooper River in Pennsauken yesterday morning, and the Tigers won in every way possible. 

The Ivy League championship is given to the team that wins the first varsity 8 race. That was Princeton, who did so in 2.5 seconds over the second-place Penn boat. 

The Ivy League's automatic bid goes to the team with the most points between the first varsity 8, second varsity 8 and varsity 4A. That was Princeton, who has now qualified for every NCAA championship since the meet began in 1997.

The overall points totals? That was also Princeton, who ran rowed away from the field.

Here's what Princeton head coach Lori Dauphiny had to say about the day:

"These women have fought and trained throughout the year. It's so fun to see the success of everyone throughout the program. There were close races throughout and everyone performed at their best level. I couldn't be prouder of all of them."

They should be proud of her. 

The Ivy League title was the seventh straight for Dauphiny and Princeton. Do you want the list of coaches in Princeton women's athletics history who have won seven straight Ivy League titles? 

Here it is: Chris Sailer (lacrosse), Beth Bozman (field hockey), Cindy Cohen (softball) and now Lori Dauphiny (women's open rowing). Bozman has the record, with 10 straight.

That's everyone. When you consider how many great coaches have come through Princeton women's athletics, that's really elite company. To build a program with that level of consistency is incredible.

It's also not easy. You need some luck — injuries, etc., can derail things quickly. You need the athletes.

Maybe more than anything, though, you need the right culture. The roster turns over and over when you go on a run like the one Dauphiny has put together, and you have different personalities, different styles, different challenges. 

What can be constant is that winning culture. It's not easy to build, and it can be destroyed easily. If you think that championships just happen, they don't. 

Not that she needed this year's championship, but you can't have a conversation about the greatest coaches in Princeton women's athletics history without including Dauphiny. It's not just the current streak that launches her into that discussion. It's the full body of work she has had at Princeton for as long as she's done it.

She also doesn't get in the boat, so the credit has to go to the rowers themselves. In the case of this year's Ivy championship first varsity 8, it would be: Zoe Scheske, Joely Cherniss, Ella Barry, Katherine George, Margot LeRoux, Samantha Smart, Anne du Croo de Jongh and Katharine Kalap with Sara Covin as the coxswain.

By the way, that lineup consists of two freshmen and seven juniors. The two freshmen are Cherniss and Smart, both of whom are from California. The rest of the lineup includes three athletes from England and one from the Netherlands, in addition to New York, Pennsylvania and another Californian. 

While the women's open rowers were winning another title at the Ivy championships, the men's heavyweight and lightweight teams competed at the Eastern Sprints in Worcester. 

The lightweight first varsity 8 finished third, behind Harvard and Penn. 

The heavyweight first varsity 8 finished an excruciatingly close second, finishing 81-thousandths of a second behind Brown. The Tigers did win the Rowe Cup, given to the team with the highest point total at Sprints, for the 10th time overall and first time since 2016.

Up next for the men, and the lightweight women, will be the IRA national championships, which begin May 31 in West Windsor on Mercer Lake. The NCAA championships begin that same day, in Bethel, Ohio. 

First Pitches

How about some baseball and softball questions to get you started today?

After all, it's a big day for Princeton in both sports.

Trivia question No. 1: Who is the only Major League catcher to catch two perfect games (hint, they were thrown by Len Barker and Dennis Martinez)? 

Trivia question No. 2: Who was the catcher who was behind the plate when Kirk Gibson hit his legendary home run off of Dennis Eckersley (hint, it's the same guy)?

Trivia question No. 3: What seven Division I softball teams have made the NCAA tournament each year this century? 

The answer to No. 1 and No. 2 is Ron Hassey. It's amazing that someone who had a relatively nondescript career could so randomly be part of three such historic moments.

As TigerBlog wrote yesterday, the Ivy League baseball tournament begins today at Columbia. Game 1 features the second-seed Princeton against No. 3 Cornell at 11, followed by top-seed Columbia and No.  4 Penn. It's a double-elimination tournament that could run through Monday, and TB's prediction is that the team that emerges with the Ivy League's automatic NCAA tournament bid will be one of the two teams who win today.

The answer to No. 3? That would be:

Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida State, Oklahoma, UCLA, Washington and ... Louisiana. That's not LSU. That's the University of Louisiana, the one in Lafayette.

The Ragin' Cajuns are back in the tournament this year. In fact, they are hosting a regional, one that begins this afternoon when they play the Ivy League representative — your Princeton Tigers. First pitch has been moved up to 1 Eastern time due to the threat of rain (something that TB experienced a lot of back in 2016 when he was there with the baseball team).

The second game in the regional features Ole Miss and Baylor, and then the double-elimination event will take shape from there. 

The challenge of playing Louisiana is a big one. The home team has won at least 40 games in each of the last 25 seasons, including this year's 42-17 record that includes the Sun Belt championship. 

The tournament will be held at Yvette Girouard Field at Lamson Park. If you're wondering, Yvette Girouard was the coach who built the program into a national powerhouse, and the Lamsons are longtime supporters.

Girouard was the first softball coach in school history, starting the team in 1981 and coaching for 20 seasons. When she was done, she had a record of 758-251, with three trips to the Women's College World Series mixed in. One of those was in 1996, when her team defeated Princeton 7-0 in the second game. 

From the website, the stadium is "often called the most beautiful and nostalgic field in the country by opposing teams who play on it." 

Ole Miss is in the NCAA tournament for the seventh straight time. Baylor is in for the 11th time in 13 years. The two played in the same regional last year as well, that time in Salt Lake City, where the Rebels went 2-0 against the Bears but lost twice to the host Utah.

As TB tried to learn a bit more about the teams, three things stood out.

First, there was this quote by Baylor coach Glenn Moore: 

"Take my wife home to her home state and get to back to where there's great food and play some softball," Moore said. "What else could you ask for."

If you read earlier in the week, TigerBlog can 100 percent vouch for the fact that there is no shortage of good food in Lafayette.

The second item came as he checked out each team's rosters. They are dominated by players from either Texas or California, with the rest of the South and Southwest represented. 

And yet there is one player on Ole Miss who sort of jumps out. That would be Lexie Brady, the starting catcher who hit a team-best 13 home runs this season. 

Where is she from? Sioux City, South Dakota. How did she end up in Oxford, Mississippi?

Lastly, there is one of Baylor's assistant coaches, Steve Johnigan. The website lists his nickname as well: "Hoot." 

What it doesn't say is why he's called "Hoot." TB emailed him to find out why, and here's what he said:

Not a great story but here you go. When we were kids, we used to watch the TV show Green Acres! In the show, there is a town that the train goes through called “Hooterville.” My brother called me “Hooterbill” when we were young just to make fun of me. I used to call him names in rebuttal but my names didn’t stick. His name for me stuck and shorten to Hooter or Hoot. He stayed with it to this day.  Everyone calls me Hoot except my mother!  It was so prevalent that many people don’t know my real first name and I find that out when they try to introduce me to other people and kind of hesitate at which time I jump in and bail them out. I was dating my wife for two years before her dad knew what my first name was. He never blushed, but when he was caught in the moment, it was the only time I ever saw him blush. Hoot has expanded to “Hootie” as that is what my grandpa name is today. I became a grandpa last year and that is what I will be called! Even some of the girls will call me “Hootie” at times so even they have fun with it! The things we do so these ladies will relax and have some fun!!

And there you have it. 

Almost First Pitch In The Ivy Baseball Tournament

TigerBlog was talking to a friend yesterday about his experience with the raccoons in the Franklin Field press box.

He thought he'd shared this story with you before, and it turns out he has: back in 2009. Anyway, here's what happened:

It was the 2007 Princeton at Penn men's lacrosse game at Franklin Field. TB was doing radio for the game, which meant he was the only person in the overhang media area that for football is crowded with broadcasters and statisticians.

On this night, though, it was just TB — and the two raccoons who wandered in. Yes, raccoons. 

So what do you do if you're broadcasting a game on the radio and your space is invaded by two raccoons? Are they friendly? Dangerous? Rabid? Penn fans? 

As he continued to at least try to keep broadcasting, TB stood up on table, banging his head on the metal ceiling in the process. He also picked up the only thing he could think of to throw if he needed to, and that was a stapler that had been sitting there since football season — perhaps football season of 1910 even.

Just as quickly as they arrived, the raccoons got bored and left. TB isn't sure what exactly they were thinking, but he's glad he didn't have to deal with them. 

And that's his raccoons story. Why bring that up today? He has no idea, especially since the subject for today is tomorrow's start of the Ivy League baseball tournament.

This will be, if TB is counting correctly, the 10th Ivy tournament of the year — field hockey, men's soccer, women's soccer, women's volleyball, men's basketball, women's basketball, men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, softball and baseball. 

Considering that just a few years ago there were no Ivy tournaments other than lacrosse, it's been a big thing for the league office to bring all of these events to life. TB was recently sent a survey to fill out about his experiences at the men's lacrosse tournament, and he gave everyone in the league office high marks, especially Celene McGovern and Rachel Schermick. 

It's not an easy assignment, and they've managed to make these events go really well, providing fans and most importantly athletes with a great experience. 

Of course, neither one of them stayed at the Cayuga Blu hotel, but hey. 

TB has no doubt that the baseball tournament will go well. Last year's inaugural one at Penn certainly did. 

This year's tournament will be held at Columbia, the Ivy League champion. If TB could make one change to the way these tournaments work, it would be to consider the team that wins the Ivy League champion and not the regular season winner, by the way.

Princeton enters the tournament as the No. 2 seed and will take on No. 3 Cornell at 11 tomorrow in the first game. The top-seeded Lions will then face Penn in Game 2.

Like last week's softball tournament, the baseball tournament is a double-elimination event that could run all the way through Monday if the maximum number of games are needed.

It's a near-impossibility to come all the way back through a double-elimination baseball tournament with a loss in the first game. It's doable, but to make it happen you need a lot of pitchers. 

In softball, teams can get by with two or three. In baseball, that's not how it works. 

If it did, then Princeton would give the ball to Jacob Faulkner and see what would happen. Princeton finished second in the league largely because it has Faulkner, who went 7-1 with four saves for the Tigers. 

Princeton's pitching staff has been decimated by injuries. Faulkner is not a one-man show by any means, but he does have a hand in 11 of the team's 17 wins. He led the Ivy League in ERA (3.16, only one other pitcher was under 4.00) and wins, was second in saves and fifth in opponent batting average. 

Cornell, Princeton's first opponent, is the No. 2 hitting and No. 7 pitching team in the league. What does it all add up to? 

The Ivy tournament, that's what. With a trip to the NCAA tournament at the end of the rainbow. 

First pitch is tomorrow at 11.

The Weekend In Rowing

You know what TigerBlog considers the eight most-annoying words in the English language? 

That would be these: "Please place your item in the bagging area." Those eight words are followed closely by these seven: "Please wait. Help is on the way." Actually, the first eight are usually followed by those seven. 

You know what he means. At least you do if you're a regular user of the self-checkout line at a supermarket. 

TB is a huge fan of the self-checkout. In fact, he avoids supermarkets that don't offer self-checkout. How can there be no self-checkout still at some places?

At the same time, it's infuriating when you're scanning your purchases and then all of the sudden the screen locks you out and that little computer-generated voice scolds you with those eight words. And then the seven that come next. 

At that point, you have to wait for the only person more annoyed than you are. The person who is assigned to the self-checkout area has to constantly come over, scan the employee card, press a few buttons and get you going. This must happen at least 100 times per shift. 

Of course, what does the supermarket care what you do with the item once it's scanned? You're already being charged for it. Why does it have to go into the bagging area? 

Maybe they're afraid you'll slip it back onto your cart and nobody will be able to tell what's been scanned and what hasn't? The whole system is based on trust anyway — although TB's supermarket does randomly select every 20th person or so and check seven items after you've checked out to make sure you've paid for them. 

Now that TB has that out of his system, he can focus on what's going on with Princeton Athletics. By this point of May, there's not much left on the calendar, but what there is would be really important.

This weekend, for instance, will see the final three Ivy League championships awarded, in men's lightweight and heavyweight rowing at Eastern Sprints in Worcester and in women's open rowing in Pennsauken.

The Princeton women have won six straight Ivy League titles and eight of the last nine. The Tigers are ranked third nationally, behind Texas and Stanford. There are three other Ivies in the Top 11, with Brown and Yale at six and seven and Penn at 11. 

How has this season gone so far for the Tigers? Well, if you look at the team's schedule, you'll see all "W's" in the results column.

Another big W for the women's open rowing team comes from Hailey Mead, one of the winners of the Spirit of Princeton Award. This is her write-up:

Hailey Mead, a senior from Orinda, California, is majoring in the School of Public and International Affairs and pursuing certificates in entrepreneurship and creative writing. She is a member of the openweight rowing team and was part of the varsity four boat that won a gold medal at the 2022 NCAA Championships and the 2022 Ivy League Championships. She founded Princeton Pictures, the University's only student organization centered around film production, and co-founded and served as the executive director of the Princeton Film Festival. She is a guitarist for the Princeton University Rock Ensemble and her independent band Plum. In the summer of 2023, she was a technology policy fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP). 

As for the men, this will be the start of a pretty exciting few weeks. The heavyweight Tigers are the No. 1 ranked team in the country, but there are five other Ivies in the Top 10. The lightweight men are one of four league teams who make up the top four of the poll, with Harvard at No. 1, Penn at No. 2, Princeton at No. 3 and Cornell at No. 4, with Dartmouth at No. 6.

There's not much that separates these boats in the poll. This weekend will show how much separates them in the water.

The women's open championships begin on Saturday and conclude Sunday. The men will be at the Eastern Sprints, which will be contested Sunday in one day.

The best way to follow the results will be through Row2K.

Seedlings

It was after 3 Saturday night Sunday morning when TigerBlog finally got to bed.

He'd been at the Princeton men's lacrosse team's NCAA tournament game at Maryland Saturday night, and the team took the bus back to Princeton after the game. As he made the drive home from the Stadium Garage, it dawned on him that probably 95 percent of the time in his life that he'd been up that late was directly related to coming back from a Princeton Athletic event.

You may draw your own conclusions about what that says about how TB has spent his life.

The quarterfinals of two NCAA Division I lacrosse tournaments are now set. Both tournaments have eight seeded teams; of the 16 teams who remain, a total of 14 were seeded.

On the men's side, the remaining teams are all seeded, Nos. 1-8. No unseeded team won on the men's side. 

For the women, there are two unseeded teams who remain. One is Michigan, who defeated No. 7 Notre Dame 15-14 on a goal with one second left in what was hardly a shocking result — the Wolverines now have an RPI of 7, so essentially they were interchangeable with the fighting Irish. 

The other unseeded women's team that's left is Florida, who took down Virginia. Florida is a mid-teens RPI team, while UVa was the No. 5 seed. 

That will have to be considered the biggest upset of the tournament.

Only once before has the men's tournament had the top eight seeds all reach the quarterfinals, and that was in 2004, the first year of the current format of seeding eight teams. 

Princeton's men fell 16-8 to Maryland in a game that was, to borrow a word from TB's postgame story, "eerie." It's incredible how eerie all five Princeton-Maryland games since 2022 have been, as the Terps get ahead early, build on the lead, never give it up and grind out possession after possession. 

To put it in perspective, if those five games, Maryland is 5-0 and has had the lead for 292:07 of the 300 minutes played.

For the women, Princeton defeated Drexel 14-9 Friday in the opening round after falling behind 4-0 and then fell to No. 2 seed Boston College in a crazy 21-16 game Sunday afternoon at BC. 

Grace Tauckus put up six goals against BC, running her career total to 140, which leaves her just outside the all-time top 10 at Princeton. Were it not for the shortened 2020 season, she would have easily reached the top five.

McKenzie Blake is already in the top 10, or at least tied for 10th, with 142 for her career. The junior had 67 goals this season, which is the third-best single-season total in program history, behind only Olivia Hompe (73 in 2017) and Kyla Sears (70 in 2022). Should she get 67 more next year, she'd tie Sears for the program record of 209.

If she maintains her NCAA tournament pace, then she'd end up with a lot more than 209. Blake was spectacular in the two games, going for nine goals after having five against Drexel. Nine goals in two NCAA tournament games? That's extraordinary.  

Here's another fact about Blake: Princeton played 18 games this season, and she had at least four goals in 12 of them. That includes nine of the final 10.

Haven Dora, a sophomore, went from 15 points last year (8G, 7A) to 24 goals and 40 assists this year. Those 40 assists tied Sears for the single-season record, by the way. Another sophomore, Amelia Hughes, is already in the top 10 in career saves; should she double her total in the next years, she'd be second all-time.

The Princeton men also had some assaults on the record book. 

Andrew McMeekin set the program record for ground balls in a season with 132, one better than Greg Waller in 1991. He also had 199 face-off wins, third-best in program single-season history, behind Waller in 1990 and, in 2022, current senior Tyler Sandoval, whose career was derailed by a torn ACL midway through last season, one that opened the door for McMeekin, who made the Ivy All-Tournament team last year and was the Most Outstanding Player this year. 

You can read HERE for more Facts, Figures and Records from the men's season.

For both Princeton teams, 2024 was special.

For the women, it was a return to the NCAA tournament after a one-year absence. For the men, it was a third-straight NCAA appearance and second-straight Ivy tournament championship, accomplished in what might have been a rebuilding year while nine of its alums were playing major roles on other NCAA teams as graduate transfers.

Still, the end of the season is never easy. As men's head coach Matt Madalon said in the lockerrom after 2 am when the team got back, you want to be the team that ends the season rolling around in the pile, but only one men's team and only one women's team gets to do so.

A Softball Championship, And A Great Reward

TigerBlog Jr. and a bunch of his friends have season tickets to the UFL's DC Defenders.

The team had a home game yesterday, which led to this conversation between father and son:

TigerBlog: Are you going home for Mothers' Day?
TBJ: No, the Defenders have a game.
TB: But it's Mothers' Day.
TBJ: I invited Mom to come down and go to the game.

If you're keeping score, she declined that invite.

Anyway, hopefully all the mothers out there had a perfect day. You know who had a great Mothers' Day? 

That would have to be Princeton head softball coach Lisa Van Ackeren.

The mother of two, Van Ackeren's extended family won the Ivy League softball tournament Saturday, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The draw was announced last night, and the Tigers will head to Lafayette, Louisiana, for the opening double-elimination round.

Princeton will play the host Louisiana-Lafayette Friday at 5:30 Eastern, with Baylor and Ole Miss as the other two teams in the regional. 

Is Lafayette a fun place to be? TigerBlog would be a good person to ask. He was there in 2016 — eight years ago? — for the NCAA baseball regional with the Tigers, and this is what he wrote:

TigerBlog had never been to an NCAA baseball regional before, and he was looking forward to going with Princeton. As he said last week, when the draw was announced, he was really hoping for Mississippi State or Ole Miss, because he thought those would be the best regionals for the overall experience. He was wrong. Or if he wasn't wrong, then he can't imagine what goes on at those two places, because how can anything top Lafayette? From the time TigerBlog got there Wednesday until he left early yesterday morning, he was amazed by the city - and its people.

Also, if there was anyone happier to see Princeton's name pop up in the Lafayette regional than the team members themselves, it was Princeton alum and TB's longtime friend Ian Auzenne, who lives there, works there and love it there, all while staying dialed in to what goes on with Princeton Athletics.

To earn its trip to Lafayette, Princeton had to do it the hard way. Well, the harder way of the easy way, or something like that.

Princeton reached the tournament final by defeating Dartmouth Wednesday and Harvard Thursday. Dartmouth, who eliminated Yale Thursday, was itself eliminated by Harvard Friday, which set up Saturday's final round.

To win the title, Harvard needed to beat Princeton twice, since it was a double-elimination tournament. The Crimson took Game 1 Saturday 6-1, and that set up the winner-take-all final game of the event. 

And, as TigerBlog has already said, Princeton came away with the win. The details? The final was 1-0, as Princeton scratched out a run in the second inning on a walk by Allison Ha, a bunt single by Grace Jackson, a Sophia Marsalo ground out that moved the runners up and base and then an RBI ground ball by Cate Bade. 

That was all Princeton would get, and that was all Princeton would need.

Cassidy Shaw started the game and went six innings, allowing no runs on four hits without a walk. Her toughest spot came in the third, when Harvard had runners on second and third with one out and Ivy Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year Sophie Sun at the plate. Shaw, though, got out of it with a strikeout and pop out.

Brielle Wright pitched a 1-2-3 seventh for the save. She got all three of her outs on ground balls, and the save was her ninth of the season, a Princeton and Ivy League record. She also now has 10 career saves, tying the Ivy League career record despite being only a sophomore. 

As for Shaw, she's a freshman with an 11-7 record in 28 appearances, 25 of them starts. Another freshman, Karis Ford, was the tournament's Most Outstanding Player after going 5 for 10 with a home run and  four RBIs. 

All three of them, by the way, are from California. 

And now they all head to Louisiana. Here's something else TB wrote after his trip there: 

During his time there, TigerBlog ate crawfish, frogs legs, alligator, catfish, gumbo, jambalaya, pastalaya, beans of all kinds and four po boys, three of which were shrimp.

Playing in the NCAA tournament anywhere is great. Playing where the Tigers are going is even more special.

Cody, Cindy And The Ivy Softball Tournament

The NCAA lacrosse tournaments begin for Princeton this weekend. 

The women are at Boston College, where they will play Drexel today at 4 in a matchup of at-large teams. The winner gets the host Eagles Sunday at noon.

The men are at seventh-seeded Maryland tomorrow night, with face-off at 7:30. The winner of that one advances to the quarterfinals against the winner of second-seed Duke and Utah. 

You can find more about both teams HERE.

TigerBlog wants to play pickleball with Cindy Cohen.

That's one of his takeaways after listening to Cohen and Cody Chrusciel do seven innings on ESPN+ yesterday of the Ivy League softball tournament, currently being played at Princeton's Strubing Field. They were excellent together, another gem of a broadcast team that is broadcasting Ivy sports these days.

Oh, and how many broadcast teams have ever both had the initials C.C.?

Cody, of course, is the voice of all kinds of events at Princeton — when he's not overseeing the productions that everyone these days take for granted. There's a lot of work that goes into getting the Tigers, and the other league schools, on air.

There are quite a few people who think that ESPN sends a crew to produce all of these games. That is not the case. 

The productions are done in-house. Imagine how many events a year are broadcast here and throughout the league, and then consider how much goes into making that happen. 

And Cindy Cohen? She's one of the greatest coaches Princeton has ever had, which you would know if you read TB's book on the first 50 years of women's athletics here. What? You didn't read it? 

You're in luck. You can buy it HERE. Trust him. It's worth it.

If you are just guessing, you could probably piece it together that Cohen was a softball coach at Princeton. She's the one who led the team to, among other milestones, two Women's College World Series appearances.

She is also a longtime TB favorite. And she doesn't live all that far from him, so maybe they can play pickleball.

It was during yesterday's Princeton-Harvard winners' bracket final game that Cohen mentioned that broadcasting the Ivy tournament is the only thing that could get her to skip pickleball for four straight days. She also said that she wouldn't have minded being a meteorologist, since you can be wrong most of the time and nobody cares.

She also analyzed the games, in a way that only someone who coached for as long as she could can. Mix that with Cody's voice and experience as a Minor League baseball announcer, and, well, you have a great broadcast.

If you're a Princeton fan, you also have had a great start to the tournament. The Tigers defeated Dartmouth 4-0 in Game 1 and then Harvard yesterday 3-1 to reach the final, while Dartmouth rebounded to beat Yale 4-3 in the losers' bracket game, making Yale the first team eliminated. 

That game, by the way, had a wild ending, as Yale, down two, had a runner thrown out at third after a runner crossed the plate for the final out of the game.

The way this leaves things is that Harvard plays Dartmouth today in an elimination game, and then the winner of that plays Princeton in the final. The winner today needs to defeat Princeton twice to win the championship.

For the winner, there is an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. 

Princeton got to the final with two great pitching performances yesterday. Starter Cassidy Shaw took Princeton into the fourth inning with a 3-1 lead, and Brielle Wright took it from there, going the rest of the way without allowing a hit, let alone a run, with three strikeouts and a walk. 

Lauren Sablone, whose three-run shot to win the last game of the regular season last weekend is the reason everyone is in Princeton now, scored Princeton's first run against the Crimson with some small ball, including hustling in for the score on some great baserunning. In fact, Princeton got all three of its runs in the third, with a two-RBI single from Karis Ford as well.

There's a chance of rain today — there's that meteorologist thing again. For now, the Harvard-Dartmouth game is schedule for noon, and Princeton vs. the winner starts tomorrow at noon, with the if necessary game to follow if, well, necessary. 

Should there be rain, everything gets pushed back a day.

You Have To Be Happy For ...

You have to be happy for ... 

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Jenn Cook.

The head women's lacrosse coach at Princeton has her team back in the NCAA tournament after a one-year absence. The Tigers take on Drexel at Boston College tomorrow at 4, with the winner to play the second-seeded host team Sunday at noon.

It's not easy to be the one who takes over for the legend. Sports history is filled with those who tried and didn't succeed. Cook took over for a Hall-of-Fame coach, Chris Sailer, who coached the Tigers for nearly 40 years. 

Putting your own stamp on a program is difficult, but this is clearly Cook's team. She and her staff — Associate Head Coach Kerrin Maurer and assistants Molly Dougherty and Kayla Wood — have navigated through all kinds of hurdles this season, not the least of which was the weather that seemed to pour down rain on the team every chance it could.

The Tigers went 6-1 in the Ivy League, winning their final six league games after dropping an 11-9 game to Yale back on March 2. That Yale game, the league opener for both, turned out to be the Ivy League championship game, since the Bulldogs went unbeaten.

Still, Cook had her team in the Top 20 all season and with an RPI that had Princeton comfortably in the NCAA tournament on Selection Sunday. Now comes the reward — a game against a Drexel team that also received an at-large bid. The Dragons, 13-6 overall, lost to Stony Brook 9-6 in the CAA final this past Saturday.

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The women's water polo team, especially the 13 players who are from California.

Princeton will be in Berkeley for the NCAA tournament beginning tomorrow at 7 Eastern (4 Pacific). The Tigers are the No. 7 seed, and they will open against Hawaii, the No. 2 seed, whom the Tigers played in their season opener back in January, when Hawaii won 10-6.

Princeton has 13 players from the state of California, and they will get to end their season playing essentially at home. The team has four seniors, of whom three are Californians — CiCi Stewart, Meera Burghardt and Bella Moscoe. The fourth is Kaila Carroll, from Connecticut. 

It has to be pretty special for a senior to finish her career in the NCAA tournament in her home state. 

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Lisa Van Ackeren.

The Princeton softball coach was named Ivy League Coach of the Year. If you're keeping score, that's her fifth time as the award-winner in the eight years it has been given. 

That's impressive. 

Princeton had three first-team All-Ivy selections: Sonia Zhang, Julia Dumais and Lauren Sablone (whose three-run home run with two out and two strikes in the bottom of the seventh last weekend against Cornell gave the Tigers their share of the league title and the host role for the tournament).

Speaking of that tournament, it began yesterday with a stunning end to Game 1, as Harvard got a two-out, two-run home run in the seventh to force extra innings and then put up eight runs in the ninth to win 12-4. Princeton's game against Dartmouth started about an hour late, and the Tigers rolled 4-0. 

Today's schedule has Princeton-Harvard at 10, followed by an elimination game between Yale and Dartmouth.

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Jon Basti.

The head coach of the Sacred Heart men's lacrosse team and his Pioneers played in the NCAA tournament's play-in game yesterday at Albany. It was the first appearance in the NCAA tournament for the program.

Basti, who regularly worked Princeton's camps when Bill Tierney was the head coach and who was TigerBlog Jr.'s coach at SHU, has always run a program that was to be admired in many ways. His players all graduate. They stay out of trouble. They win the league's GPA awards. They are always active in the local community.

This year, they've added another dimension to that culture, romping through the MAAC at a perfect 9-0 and then winning the league tournament last weekend. 

If you happened to be watching after the Pios won the title game and saw Basti's interview, you now know everything you need to know about him. His emotions were genuine and worn on his sleeve, as always, and he spoke directly from the heart about what this meant and about how many people he had to thank. It was heart-warming. 

Nice guys, it seems, can finish first. 

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Mike Ford.

The former Princeton player who won Ivy Pitcher of the Year and Player of the Year signed a Major League contract with the Cincinnati Reds. Ford's salary, prorated for the rest of the season, would be $1.1 million.

Ford has hit 36 MLB home runs in 627 career at-bats, including a career-best 16 home runs last year with Seattle. 

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And finally, there's Nicole D'Andrea DeNiro, one of the unsung heroes of Princeton Athletics with her work in the equipment room. Nicole recently got married, and then got married again this past weekend (the ceremony was in April, the party was this weekend). 

Again, couldn't happen to a nicer person.

A Triple Crown, Again

TigerBlog starts today with a reminder that the Ivy League softball tournament schedule has been changed, and changed again, due to 1) final exam conflicts and 2) possible rain.

Here is the actual schedule for the event, which is being hosted by Princeton:

Wednesday, May 8
Game 1 2:30pm #2 Yale vs. #3 Harvard
Game 2 5:00pm #1 Princeton vs. #4 Dartmouth

Thursday, May 9
Game 3 TBD Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2
Game 4 TBD Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2

Friday, May 10
Game 5 TBD Winner of Game 4 vs. Loser of Game 3

Saturday, May 11
Game 6 12:00pm Winner of Game 3 vs. Winner of Game 5
Game 7 (if necessary) 35 minutes following conclusion of game 6

Make-up Date: Sunday, May 12

So that's the softball story. The baseball story is still a week away, as Harvard and Yale play three regular season games this weekend. Columbia will be the host no matter what. Princeton will be the No. 2 seed unless Yale sweeps Harvard, in which case the Tigers will be the No. 3 seed. 

In the meantime, while you wait you can read THIS STORY about Jake Koonin and his father Jason Koonin, who are the first father-son to play for Scott Bradley at Princeton. 

And all of that brings TigerBlog to this past weekend at Weaver Track and Field Stadium, the site of the Ivy League Heptagonal championships. 

TigerBlog was on the bus back from the Ivy men's lacrosse tournament when he received a text message from his colleague Chas Dorman, who said that the women's Heps was incredibly close. When TB asked about the men, Chas replied "not as close."

He was right on both counts.

The Ivy women's title went to Penn, who won the championship on the final event to edge out Princeton 184.5-184. That's one-half a point. 

It was the second time that that a women's outdoor Heps was decided by a one-point, the other back in 1997, when Princeton again was edged, this time by Cornell. As amazing as it may seem, those two aren't the closest finishes: Princeton and Brown tied in 1996.

Princeton's Alexandra Kelly was named the Most Outstanding Field Performer of the Meet after winning the long jump and finishing second in the triple jump.

As for the men, Chas was right — it wasn't close. Princeton put up 204.5 points. The runner-up, Harvard, had 126.

The result was the completion of a Triple Crown for the Tigers, who have, again, won the men's cross country, indoor track and field and now outdoor track and field championships in the same academic year. How many times has Princeton do so? 

This year makes 11. 

How many times has every other league team do it? Well, perhaps this answers that question: Jason Vigilante is the second head coach to lead his team to the Triple Crown. The first was Fred Samara, who did it 10 times.

In other words, nobody else other than Princeton has ever accomplished it in men's track and field.

Jackson Clarke was the Most Outstanding Track Athlete in the meet after winning the 100 and 200 and  being part of the second-place 4x100 relay. Oh, and he's a freshman.

Of course, TB's favorite event in track and field is the 3,000 meter steeplechase, and Princeton had another Jackson — Shorten — win this one. Shorten, a sophomore, shaved six seconds of his Heps time of last year, when he first fourth. 

Another freshman, Xavier Donaldson, took the 400. Junior Sam Rodman won the 800.

This win, like all wins in such meets, is not done by winning races. It's by stacking finishers near the top in as many races as possible, and that's what Princeton did so well, as it always does. 

The shot put was the perfect example. Princeton didn't win, but it went 2-3-4, with Tyler Konopka, Joe Licata and Casey Helm.

There will be plenty of chances for individual accomplishments at the NCAA Regionals, which come up in Lexington, Kentucky, May 22-25. 

For now it's a chance to celebrate the 11th Triple Crown for the men's track and field team — and "team" is the perfect word to use, even in an individual sport.

"Buy Me Some Peanuts And Cracker Jack"

So from what famous song does this lyric come?:

On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No,
I'll tell you what you can do:"

Give up? 

The next line is "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." Perhaps you've heard it? 

The song was written in 1908 by two composers — Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer — who had never, in fact, seen a baseball game prior to writing it. The inspiration apparently came from a sign advertising a game at the Polo Grounds that Norworth saw while riding on the New York City subway.

Why has TigerBlog started there on this Tuesday morning? It's because there are two Princeton teams who can be forgiven for humming the most famous verse in their sport.

The Princeton baseball and softball teams will see their seasons continue beyond the end of the regular season, which came for both this past weekend. TigerBlog will start with the softball team.

Princeton won itself an Ivy League championship Saturday afternoon, and the host role for this week's Ivy League tournament, in about the most dramatic way imaginable. In fact, the ending was more reminiscent of the end of "Casey At The Bat," though with a happier ending.

Much like the Mudville Nine that day, Princeton trailed 4-2 with but one inning more to play. And then, also like Mudville, Princeton found itself with two on and two out. 

Unlike Casey, though, Lauren Sablone did not strike out. And, as such, there was great joy in Princeton.

Sablone, down to her final strike, rocketed the ball over the leftfield fence, making the final score 5-4 Princeton. How long did it take Sablone to circle the bases? 

TigerBlog timed it. He came up with 12.3 seconds. Even if it's give or take a tenth of a second here or there, Sablone clearly wanted to get back to where the celebration was starting.

Walk Off Championship Moment.
Your Ivy Player of the Week 🤫https://t.co/VUYA0yA1Cw pic.twitter.com/gSo8cvr8Gp

— Princeton Softball (@PUSoftball) May 6, 2024

 Had she gone the way of Casey, Princeton would not have won a share of the Ivy title, and the Ivy tournament would not be in Princeton. In fact, it would have been at Yale.

Princeton will begin the ILT on its home field tomorrow (that's a change in date due to the weather forecast) at 5 against Dartmouth, while Harvard and Yale will play in the opening game of the double-elimination event at 2:30. Princeton earned a share of the Ivy championship, making it the 22nd overall and third straight for the program.

The baseball team, on the other hand, was playing this past weekend to get into the Ivy tournament. Columbia had already clinched the league championship and host role, but the Tigers went into the weekend in second place. 

At the same time, Princeton, even with just three games left, had not yet clinched its ILT spot. And doing so wouldn't be easy, not with the three at Columbia.

Princeton had a single game Friday and then two Saturday. The drama never made it to the weekend.

First, Dartmouth knocked off Penn, which meant that Princeton now needed only one win in the three games or one more Penn loss to get its spot. 

And whom should the Tigers rely on for the clincher, Dartmouth ... or Jacob Faulkner? The answer was clear.

Princeton's Will Sword started the first game at Columbia and went into the third inning without allowing a run. With the Tigers up 1-0, Scott Bradley went to Faulkner, who has been amazing all season. Scratch that. He's been the keystone of the entire team all season.

And now, with the season on the line, he came through once again. Faulkner would go the rest of the way and not allow a run until the ninth, by which time the Tigers were up 4-0. Even though the ninth was the only inning in which Columbia would score, it was also in many ways Faulkner's most impressive inning.

Faulkner allowed a lead-off walk and then, after getting a ground out, saw the shutout vanish with a two-run home run. Suddenly things were dicey. 

How would he respond? He got another out and allowed two singles. On the ropes, but not out, he finally ended things with a fly ball.

Faulkner is now 7-1 with four saves as he has anchored, and held together, an injury-riddled pitching staff. 

Columbia swept the doubleheader Saturday, and Penn swept Dartmouth as well, which shows you how important that win Friday was. The Tigers will now wait an extra week for the start of the baseball tournament, which will take the team back to Columbia next week. 

The Battle Of Cayuga Blu

The Battle of Cayuga Blu went to the team on the second floor. 

From check-in on Thursday until check-out yesterday, the Princeton and Penn men's lacrosse teams shared the same hotel, the Cayuga Blu, located across the parking lot from the Ithaca Mall. Both teams were at Cornell for the Ivy League tournament, and it turned out that the hotel — which came to be nicknamed "Big Blu" — was the only landing spot either could find.

The hotel has two floors. Penn was on the first floor. Princeton was on the second. Almost nobody else was in the hotel, except for a vinyl record fair held Saturday.

Both teams took their meals on the first floor, separated by about 20 yards of hallway. At first, it was mildly amusing, since Princeton played Yale and Penn played Cornell in Friday's semifinals. 

Then, when both teams won those games, they were now going to face each other in yesterday's final. That meant a lot of close proximity for two teams about to play against each other in the biggest game of the year, and it was certainly an interesting dynamic. 

Princeton was going through its pregame scouting meeting Saturday night, and Penn's players were walking right by in the hallway. That's not something that happens a lot.

Now, TigerBlog offers a few words about the Cayuga Blu Hotel. It's an older hotel without a ton of amenities, and there was a boiler issue yesterday that left both teams without hot water. At the same time, it makes up for any negatives it might have with the welcoming warmth of the staff, especially Kimberly, who owns it with her husband. 

TB asked Kimberly if she'd be able to come to the game yesterday, and she said she'd watch it but couldn't leave the hotel. When TB asked her which teams she was rooting for, she said "you of course." Then he asked her if she said the same thing to Penn, and she said yes and laughed.  

In fact, she had hung on the marquee by the road "Good Luck Ivy League," a diplomatic gesture of neutrality. 

In the end, the Cayuga Blu became a rallying cry for Princeton, a literal one, for that matter, as the Tigers broke their huddle by yelling "Cayuga Blu" in unison. There was also a bit of grit to the place, the good kind, the kind that can give you an edge if you embrace it, and the Tigers clearly did. 

Yesterday morning, there was the unlikely sight of four buses lined up in the same hotel parking lot, getting ready to carry the two rivals over to Schoellkopf Field. TigerBlog can't remember ever seeing something like that before.

And so, at 1 yesterday afternoon, the two teams who had shared a hotel for three nights now shared the same field. At stake was the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and the team on the second floor defeated the team on the first floor 18-11. 

Like Princeton's 14-10 win over Yale in the semifinals, this one was close at halftime and then not as close after that. The Tigers led 8-7 at the break after Penn had scored three goals in the final two minutes of the second quarter, and it was 10-4 Tigers after that.

Between the two games, Princeton outscored its opponents 13-12 in the first half and 19-9 in the second.

The Most Outstanding Player of the tournament was sophomore face-off man Andrew McMeekin, whose two game totals were almost shocking: 38 for 60, with 28 groundballs and three caused turnovers, as well as a massive goal against Yale Friday night. 

The final was also a showcase for Coulter Mackesy, Princeton's junior attackman. It wasn't so much a showcase of his skill, though he did put up three goals and four assists while being guarded by a can't miss first-team All-American defenseman.

No, it was more his toughness. He absorbed hit after hit, check after check, all with his 5-10, 170-pound frame, and yet his tenacity and relentlessness never wavered. Whenever Princeton needed a big play, Mackesy was there to make it. 

Then again, so was everyone else on the team. It's hard to single anyone out, because this was a total team effort, just like it has been the last three weeks. 

If you recall, Princeton lost to Brown back on April 13 to dig itself a deep hole as far as even making the Ivy tournament in the first place. With their backs to the walls, the Tigers had to regroup, and do so quickly. First, there were the two regular season finales, which became a 15-10 win over Penn and a 15-8 win over Yale to get into the Ivy tournament.

Then it was the tournament itself, where Princeton repeated its two wins, just in reverse order. It was the second straight year that Princeton has won the Ivy tournament, and the Tigers are now headed back to the NCAA tournament for the third straight year, including reaching the 2022 Final Four.

Princeton's buses rolled back into town just in time for the Selection Show. In fact, the Tigers had to sprint out to the football stadium to see who their opponent would be (Maryland), where (at Maryland) and when (Saturday, 7:30). As the team headed across the track, it encountered the women's team, who had just seen that it would be playing Drexel at Boston College in its own tournament.

And now it's time for the Tigers to get back to work. There will be no staying at the Cayuga Blu this time, but make no mistake, the Tigers will be taking some that Cayuga Blu experience with them to College Park.

Thoughts Before A Big Weekend

Thoughts before the start of a big weekend ... 

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There will be at least two Ivy League championships, and possibly three, won at Princeton this weekend. 

The two that are for sure are at the Ivy League Heptagonal track and field championships, which starts tomorrow at noon and runs through Sunday at Weaver Track and Field Stadium. Coverage on ESPN+ begins both days at noon.

If you've never been to Heps, it's quite a show. There are all kinds of different events all day, and the colors of all eight schools are all on abundant display. 

The Princeton men and women both finished second a year ago in the outdoor Heps. The men have already won the Heps cross country and indoor track and field titles, which means another Triple Crown is a possibility. Princeton's men have already won 10 of those. 

The complete schedule of events can be found HERE. 

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The third Ivy title that could be won on campus this weekend is in softball, where Princeton will host Cornell for three games beginning with one today at 3:30 and then continuing with a doubleheader tomorrow beginning at 12:30.

Right now Princeton is 12-6 in the Ivy League, while Harvard and Yale have both finished their regular seasons at 14-7. To give you a better sense of what's at stake, there's this from the goprincetontigers.com preview story:

If Princeton wins two games to finish 14-7 in the league, it would host the Ivy League tournament because it would have the best record against the other tied teams, whether that's Harvard and Yale or Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Princeton swept both Yale and Dartmouth and took one from Harvard, while Yale swept Harvard, Harvard took two from Dartmouth, and Dartmouth took two from Yale. 

If Princeton wins one or fewer games this weekend, Yale would host the Ivy tournament as it would have the best record among the possibly tied teams, whether that's only Harvard or both Harvard and Dartmouth. Princeton needs one win or one loss each from Columbia and Brown to clinch a bid in the league tournament.

The Ivy League tournament begins Thursday, either in Princeton or at Yale.

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TigerBlog was about to put his stuff on the bus yesterday morning when he realized something wasn't quite right. What could it be? 

As it turned out, it was the women's tennis bus. When you have a bunch of buses stacked up at this time of year, it's a great sign.

The women's tennis team, ranked 39th nationally, was on its way to Charlottesville for the NCAA tournament, where it will take on No. 26 Washington tomorrow at 10 am. The winner of that match will then take on the winner of fifth-ranked Virginia and Long Island U. 

Whoever wins that much Sunday will advance to the Super Regionals next weekend. 

As TB realized he was headed to the wrong bus, he saw women's tennis coach Jamea Jackson. Had he know then that Jackson was about to be named the Ivy League Coach of the Year after guiding the Tigers to a fifth straight Ivy title.  

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The women's tennis team is not the only Princeton team in Charlottesville for the NCAAs this weekend. The men's team will be there as well. 

The Tigers, ranked 33rd, take on No. 41 Virginia Commonwealth today at 1, followed by No. 3 Virginia and NJIT at 4. The winners meet tomorrow at 4 in the second round.

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The correct bus for TigerBlog was the one in front of the women's tennis bus. That would be one for the men's lacrosse team, which was heading in the opposite direction for women's tennis. 

The men's lacrosse destination was Ithaca, where Cornell will be hosting the Ivy League tournament tonight and Sunday afternoon. 

It begins at 6 tonight, when second-seeded Princeton takes on third-seeded Yale in a rematch of a game from six days ago, when Princeton won 15-8 in New Haven. Top-seeded Cornell will take on Penn at 8:30 or so; the winners play Sunday at 1. All three games can be seen on ESPNU and ESPN+.

Princeton is staying in the same hotel as the Penn team. You know who else is staying in this hotel? Nobody.

You have Princeton on the second floor. You have Penn on the first floor. Just before dinner last night, Princeton head coach Matt Madalon and Penn head coach Mike Murphy were having a casual conversation in the hallway. 

Should both teams win tonight, it would be an interesting dynamic to be sharing a hotel as they would be preparing to play in the ILT final. For now, it's been a whole bunch of "hey, how you doing?" with nods back and forth as the teams walk by each other. 

The person who so far has had the toughest balancing act is the woman at the front desk, an amiable woman named Kimberly who has to convince each team that it is actually her favorite. Kimberly owns the hotel along with her husband, and it has been in her husband's family since the 1970s. If you think you work hard, you should see how much Kimberly does at her hotel.

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The women's lacrosse team had to negotiate the explosion on I-95 in Connecticut, which will keep the highway closed for the next few days, on its way to its own Ivy League tournament, this one at Yale. 

Princeton, like the men seeded second, open the tournament against third-seeded Penn at 4 today, followed by the game between top-seeded Yale and fourth-seeded Harvard at 7. The final is Sunday at 1, with all three games on ESPN+.

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Another team that is hopping on a bus this weekend is the baseball team, who plays three at Columbia, also beginning this afternoon (2) and continuing with a doubleheader tomorrow (first pitch at 11:30). Columbia has already clinched the Ivy League title and the host role in the league tournament. 

Princeton is currently in second place and would clinch an Ivy tournament spot with two wins, or if any number of other scenarios play out beyond that. Complicating matters is that Harvard and Yale play next weekend, not this weekend, so the final outcome might not be known after the weekend.

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The complete weekend schedule can be found HERE.

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Lastly, TigerBlog would like to congratulate his longtime dear friend Sue Byrne of Harvard Athletics, who retired yesterday after a long career in sports marketing with the Boston Bruins first and then with the Crimson.