Game Night, Game Week

TigerBlog was driving along a highway the other day when he saw a car on the side of the road with its trunk up. 

As he drove past at 70 miles per hour or so, he noticed that the driver, a man who appeared to be in his 30s or 40s, had set up his golf bag behind the car. TB's thought? 

"Hey, buddy, you're probably going to have to take a drop on this one."

In other comedy news, TigerBlog Jr.'s girlfriend Veronica is one of nine children, and her mother does stand-up. This was from one of her shows this weekend:

"If you take two kids to the park and bring one back, that's a 50. That's an F. If you bring nine kids to the park and bring back eight, that's an 89. That's a B+."

Not bad, right? And that doesn't even take into account possible grade inflation. 

Ah, but seriously folks. TigerBlog will be here all week. 

Well, not really. He's heading to North Carolina Thursday for the start of field hockey season, which begins with the Conference Crossover in Chapel Hill. Princeton will play Old Dominion Friday and then  the host Tar Heels Sunday. Penn will also be there to play the opposite schedule. 

The field hockey team is one of six Princeton teams who will be kicking it off this week as the calendar turns from August to September. In addition to field hockey, there is also women's volleyball (at Colgate's tournament), men's and women's cross country (at Providence's invitational), men's water polo (at Navy for three matches, none of which are against the host) and women's rugby (at La Salle). 

The schedule brings with it 1.5 head coach debuts for Princeton. Derek Ellingson, the women's water polo head coach, is the interim head coach for the men's team for 2026 after Dusty Litvak left Princeton to become the women's head coach at Loyola Marymount. Ellingson has been at Princeton since 2004, as an assistant with both teams and for the last seven year as the women's head coach, with a:

148-46 (.763) overall record and is 48-8 (.857) in CWPA play. His teams have won two CWPA championships while he has served as head coach (2023, 2024) and have played in two NCAA Tournaments with a trip to the national semifinals in 2023. :Overall since his arrival on campus in 2004, Ellingson has been an assistant or head coach for 11 CWPA Division championships and 14 CWPA Conference championships while guiding teams to 14 NCAA Tournaments. 

That's from his bio. 

The women's rugby game Saturday in Philadelphia will be the Tiger head coaching debut for Karameli Fa'ae'e. You can read more about her HERE.

In the meantime, there's the matter of the two teams who have already started their seasons. That would be the two soccer teams. 

The women were to have a game Thursday against No. 22 West Virginia, but the thunderstorms forced that to be postponed. The Tigers did get to play yesterday, defeating James Madison 2-0 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. 

The two goals came courtesy of Isabella Garces, who now has three in three games, as well as three of the five her team has scored. The three goals equal her season total from last year and are one off of her high for a full season after she had four in 2024. 

The women will play two straight games against Big Ten teams next, both on the road, with stops at Ohio State Thursday and Rutgers Sunday. 

And all of that brings TB to the men's team, who will be home tonight against Portland at 7. This is a huge opportunity for the Tigers after a 1-1 tie against Villanova in the season-opener Friday night.  

Portland and Princeton have never met before, and the Pilots are coming all the way across the country for just the one game. A year ago the teams combined to go 29-4-6, and they have both been highly ranked in the preseason. 

Princeton will also be home Friday against James Madison.