Today's theme is, not shockingly, "Championships."
TigerBlog will get to the four that Princeton won this past weekend in a minute. First, there was the little matter of Game 7 of the World Series, won by the Dodgers over the Blue Jays 5-4 in 11 innings.
If you watched it, you immediately had to put into the top 10 best baseball games you ever saw. And the catch that Andy Pages made in the bottom of the ninth at the base of the wall with the bases loaded and two outs? That might have been the most clutch catch in baseball history.
Consider that if Pages hadn't made that catch, the Blue Jays would have won the World Series. And to make that catch, Pages had to essentially body slam his teammate to get it. You won't see a more clutch catch ever.
Pages should have been the MVP of the World Series, despite batting only 1 for 16 for the seven games. Okay, maybe not. Still, no Pages, no title for the Dodgers.
And with that, TB segues quickly into the Princeton Tigers and their four Ivy League titles this weekend.
It started Friday with the women's cross country title at the Ivy League Heptagonal championships at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City. Anna McNatt and Meg Madison finished 1-2, and both beat the former Heps Princeton record held by Olympian Lizzie Bird. The Tigers literally ran past the field, with 27 points, 55 ahead of runner-up Yale
About an hour later, the men matched that title with one of their own. Myles Hogan won the men's race by 48 seconds (that seems like a lot) as the Tigers went 1-5-7-8-11.
Then came Saturday, when the women's soccer team took down Brown in Providence 2-1 on a pair of goals from sophomore Alexandra Barry. Then it was the men's soccer team's turn, and those Tigers used a Sam Vigilante goal for a 1-0 win over Dartmouth at home.
Here's a look at Vigilante's goal, courtesy of Karla Donohoe:
If you want to read the stories, you can do so at these links:
women's cross country
men's cross country
women's soccer
men's soccer
It was a two-title weekend for the Vigilante family alone, as Jason — Sam's father — coaches the men's cross country team. That's five straight in men's cross country, by the way.
And two straight in women's cross country and women's soccer. And, while it wasn't exactly two straight for the men's soccer team, the Tigers did win the Ivy League tournament a year ago.
The men's soccer team clinched its outright championship with a full week still to go in the regular season. As such, the Ivy League tournament will be on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in next weekend (not to be confused with this weekend, when the women's tournament will be on that field Thursday and Sunday).
A few weeks ago, that seemed like a very unlikely possibility. And yet here it will be.
For the record (from the Ivy League website):
Second-seeded Dartmouth will take on third-seeded Columbia in the first semifinal at 3:30 p.m. The top-seeded Tigers will have a rematch with the fourth seeded Bears in the second semifinal at 7 p.m. The winners will square off at 1 p.m. on Sunday for the league automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. All matches will be broadcast on ESPN+.
As you probably know, Princeton did not get off to a great start, but all of that changed after a 2-0 loss to Harvard and a 1-0 loss to Yale on consecutive Saturdays to fall to 1-2-0 in the league. Neither of those two opponents, by the way, will be in Princeton this weekend.
Since then, the Tigers are undefeated, with four league wins and one non-league win in that stretch. In those five games, Princeton has outscored its opponents by a combined 13-2.
To cap it off, Princeton had to go to Providence and win that game, or else the champion would have been Dartmouth. That's impressive stuff.
Of course, so is winning four Ivy League championships in one weekend.
And most impressive? It's not the first time Princeton has ever done this.