The News And The Views

September 26? Why does that date sound familiar?

Oh yeah. It's FatherBlog's birthday. Happy 89th to a man whose regimen for longevity has been 1) eat pretty much whatever you want and 2) rarely exercise.

Whenever TigerBlog calls his father, he always starts off with the same question: "What's the news and the views?" TB isn't sure where his father first came up with that, but he does know he's heard it about a million times.

So, for his dad's birthday, here are some news and views from Princeton Athletics. 

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TigerBlog spent about 10 minutes on the men's and women's soccer schedules to try to figure out how they could both begin their Ivy League schedules Saturday of this week but end them one week apart. 

Both the men and the women play eight league games. They both start in two days. They both play a league game every weekend between now and the end of the regular season.

It wasn't until he went back and forth a few times that he realized that the women's teams play a midweek game — in Princeton's case, against Penn Oct. 9 at home. In fact, that Wednesday will see all eight Ivy women's teams play a game against their traditional travel partners. 

The women's and men's NCAA tournaments begin a week apart, as always, which means that the Ivy League tournaments are a week apart. The race to get the four spots in the Ivy tournament begin this weekend.

Princeton's women will be at Cornell at noon, presumably at full strength now that the U20 World Cup has ended. Pietra Tordin is back from Colombia with a bronze medal with the U.S. team, and Zoe Markesini has already played twice with the Tigers after helping Canada to the knockout stage.

Without those two, Princeton put together a 4-3 record. There have been seven different players with at least one goal, and it was the first career goal for five of them. It's been a great experience for the entire team without Tordin and Markesini, and it's been timed somewhat perfectly that they're all back together for the Ivy opener.

The men will open their Ivy season at home against Harvard at 4. The Tigers are 2-3 against what has been a very tough non-league schedule, with the most recent game a 2-0 loss at Georgetown Tuesday afternoon.

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You can see two different Princeton teams play in New York City tomorrow night.

The field hockey team is at Columbia at 6. The men's water polo team is at Fordham, also at 6. Those two venues are about three miles apart. 

By the way, the water polo match is between two Top 10 teams, with No. 7 Princeton and No. 10 Fordham. 

You may want to check out the first half of water polo and then catch the second half of field hockey. If you're doing it, let TB know. You deserve recognition.

The water polo team will be staying in New York for Saturday games at Iona and LIU. 

The field hockey team returns home Sunday to take on Northwestern, who has been ranked No. 1 all season until this past week, when it dropped to No. 2, switching places with North Carolina despite not losing. That game will begin at noon on Bedford Field.

Princeton and Columbia are two of the four Ivy teams who are 1-0 so far, along with Harvard and Brown. The game will match the reigning Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week (Princeton's Beth Yeager) and Defensive Player of the Week (Katie Wimmer, who made nine saves in a 1-0 win over Cornell and 13 in a 1-0 loss to Monmouth).

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The women's rugby team is home Saturday at noon against Brown. The Tigers got their first varsity 15s win last weekend, 59-0 over Bowdoin. 

Princeton women's rugby features Lauren Barnds, whose grandfather Jack was in the Class of 1954 and was a football and rugby player for the Tigers.

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The women's volleyball team has a home-and-home against Penn this weekend, beginning in Dillon Gym tomorrow night at 7 and then concluding at the Palestra Saturday at 5:30.

The women's golf team hosts it Princeton Invitational at Springdale this weekend as well.

The complete schedule can be found HERE.