"200" And "One"

Today's numbers are "200" and "one."

TigerBlog starts with "200."

This past Friday night in New York City, Sabrina King earned her 200th career win as the head coach of the Princeton women's volleyball team when her team defeated Columbia 3-0. There were smiles, and flowers, for the occasion. 

If you'll permit a small diversion for a great Pete Carril story, TigerBlog was talking with former local sportswriting legend Mark Eckel the other day, and the story of when Carril won his 500th game at Princeton came up. 

Eckel was one of the reporters who covered that game, and he asked Carril the logical question: What are some of the biggest wins you've had?

Carril named one or two games and then said "and you have to include the Georgetown game." He was referring, of course, to the 1989 NCAA tournament first round game against the No. 1 Hoyas. 

When Carril said that, Eckel looked at TB, who had to point out the obvious: "Uh, Coach, you didn't win that one."

It just goes to show you what an epically historic game like that Georgetown game can do to the memory, no? It certainly felt like a win. 

Meanwhile, the 200 wins for King make for a nice round number, but her resume was already one of the greatest you'll see in Princeton Athletics history. 

Consider all of the following: 

* she has coached Princeton to five Ivy titles
* she is a three-time Ivy Coach of the Year
* she spent seven years as an assistant coach to the great Glenn Nelson, with two more Ivy titles
* she was a three-time All-Ivy Player
* she was the 1999 Ivy Player of the Year
* she won three Ivy titles as a player

That's pretty good, no? TB can't really think of too many others who have had that kind of success as a player, assistant coach and head coach, all at Princeton.

King is in her 14th season as the Tiger head coach and has had only one non-winning season in her first 13. This year's team finds itself in second place in the Ivy League at 6-2, behind only unbeaten Yale. 

The Tigers began the Ivy season with a loss to Penn and have won six of seven since, with the other loss to the Bulldogs. The automatic bid to the NCAA tournament goes to the winner of the Ivy tournament at season's end, and Princeton is in good shape to be in the four-team field. 

Princeton, by the way, does not have an Ivy match this weekend. Instead, Marquette will be in Dillon Gym Saturday at 1:30, after playing a Big East match at Seton Hall Friday. Marquette is 11-6 overall, 7-1 in its league. 

And congratulations to Sabrina. It's always good to get to one of those big round numbers. 

Meanwhile, there's the "one."

The men's water polo team finished its fall break trip west with a win over California. The 11-9 win was the first for the Tigers over the Golden Bears in program history — hence the number "one."

Roko Pozaric scored four times against Cal. Every goal he scores from here on in, of course, just adds to the career record he set earlier in the week against Pepperdine.

Freshman Tas Palcza had three goals. Kristóf Kovács tied his season-high with 16 saves. 

Princeton went 3-3 on its California swing. Considering that five of those six games came against teams ranked in the top eight of last week's poll, that's not too bad. 

The three losses came to the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 teams in the country (UCLA, USC, Pacific), and those three losses were by two, three and one goals. That's impressive stuff. 

The new poll comes out today, and it'll be interesting to see the shuffling that occurs after Princeton's results last week. 

Getting a shot at those schools again will require Princeton to get through the league playoffs and into the NCAA tournament. After a well-earned weekend off, Princeton will head into a huge November that begins with home matches against LIU and Iona and ends with the Northeast Water Polo Conference tournament in DeNunzio Pool.