Welcome To October

It was a bit breezy yesterday morning.

At one point, TigerBlog looked up and saw a large leaf float peacefully on the wind until it settled on the ground, alongside dozens of its brothers and sisters. It was very calm and very picturesque — and also very ominous. 

Summer is over. Winter, it said, is on the way. 

Welcome to October. The end of the month will bring Halloween, which brings with it the annual sprint to Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. 

The last day of September brought temperatures in the 80s to the Princeton area. By the end of the October, those hot days will only be a memory. More leaves will have fallen. Jackets and sweatshirts will be required. 

And crossover season will have begun. In fact, the college women's hockey season actually has begun, and the college men's hockey season faces off this weekend. With real games. 

For now, it's still only fall events at Princeton. This weekend has some intriguing ones. 

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The Princeton and Yale women's volleyball teams have combined to win five Ivy League championships in the last three years. How's that? 

The teams have shared the Ivy League championship twice in the last three years, while Yale has won it outright once. Between them they have 34 all-time Ivy titles of the 58 that have been awarded (Princeton with 20, Yale with 14).

Only twice in the last 15 years has a team other than Princeton or Yale represented the league in the NCAA tournament. 

It's very early in the Ivy season for 2025, obviously. Each team has played just one league opponent, with Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Cornell all at 1-0.

This weekend is the first back-to-back, and Princeton hosts Brown tomorrow (7) and Yale Saturday (5). Obviously any Princeton-Yale matchup is big, even if it is the second weekend. 

First, though, there is Brown. The Bears are the last team other than Princeton or Yale to win the league championships, something they did in 2021. There is no looking past anyone.

If you've never seen volleyball in Dillon Gym, it is electric. Admission is free. 

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There will be a soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Princeton Stadium, though with different opponents. 

It starts at 4, when the men's team takes on Brown. The women then play Yale at 7.

The men's team is the top-ranked team in the RPI in Division I. The team also entered the United Soccer Coaches' poll this week at No. 13.

Princeton took down Army-West Point Tuesday night on the road 2-0, improving to 7-1-0 with a sixth-straight win and fifth-straight shutout. Princeton won the Ivy League tournament a year ago, as you recall. 

Brown is one of three teams, along with Princeton and Cornell, who won its league opener a week ago, with a 2-1 win over Dartmouth. The Bears are 5-2-1 overall and 3-0-1 in their last four, with wins over Rhode Island and UMass-Lowell and a tie with Providence. 

The women's race had a week head start on the men, so this will be the third Ivy game for the teams. There's a long way to go, though the Ivy tournament field will be starting to take shape. Hey, three out of seven league games will be a significant barometer of where everyone stands. 

Right now, Princeton is one of four teams at 1-1-0. The only 2-0-0 team is Columbia, while Dartmouth is next at 1-0-1. 

Yale is 0-2-0, 2-7-0 overall.

Admission for all regular season soccer games is free.

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The field hockey team is on the road tomorrow at 5 in New Haven for a big one at Yale. The Tigers are 5-3 and ranked eighth in the country in the coaches' poll and seventh in RPI.

Yale is ranked 16th by the coaches and is 11th in RPI. The Bulldogs are 6-1 overall and, like Princeton, 1-1 in the league. 

The Tigers bounced back nicely from a 3-1 home loss to Harvard with a 2-1 win at No. 11 Maryland Sunday. This is the first weekend of the season where Princeton only plays one game. 

It's also the first of three straight on the road, with a road trip to Dartmouth next Saturday followed by a flight from Boston to Chicago to take on Northwestern a week from Monday.   

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Okay, this isn't actually a fall sport, but there will be six lacrosse games on Sherrerd Field Saturday. 

It will start at 9 am when Princeton's women take on Fairfield, followed in order by Fairfield-Albany and then Princeton-Albany. 

The Princeton men will play at 2 against Syracuse in a rematch of last year's epic 19-18 Orange win in the NCAA quarterfinals, followed by Syracuse-Army and then Princeton-Army.

Admission is free and open to the public.  

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The entire weekend schedule can be found HERE.