Photo By Rich Fahsbender

TigerBlog was seated in the middle on the Princeton field hockey team's flight home from North Carolina last Sunday. 

He definitely prefers the window. He can look out the window for the entirety of a flight, whether it's one hour from Raleigh-Durham or all the way to Europe or beyond. On this occasion, though, he settled for the window. 

Rich Fahsbender, the strength and conditioning coach for the field hockey team, was supposed to be across the aisle from TB. Neither one of them had anyone in his row as boarding was winding down, leading Fahsbender to completely jinx both of them by saying "hey, we might get a whole row each." 

About five minutes later, TB had travelers on either side of him. The one on the aisle was friends with the one who was supposed to at the window in Rich's row, so she swapped with him. It's a good thing she did, because Rich more than made up for his jinx by snapping this shot as the plane descended into Newark:

It doesn't get much better than that, right? It gets TB to forgive Rich for what he said on the plane and what he said in the hotel earlier in the trip, when he said something about worry about it when he's "60s and bald." Uh, what? 

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There are 17 events for Princeton teams between tonight and Sunday, including the 2026-27 debut of yet another team. That would be the men's tennis team, which is at Virginia for the Orange and Blue Classic. The UVa courts are located at the resort where the Princeton men's lacrosse team stayed during its NCAA championship weekend this past spring, so it's a place that will always be special to TB. 

The game tonight is a women's soccer matchup between the Tigers and Colgate. Because the school's Director of Athletics is Yariv Amir, whom TB hired long ago to be the men's hockey contact at Princeton, TB will usually root for Colgate teams — unless they're playing Princeton. 

The Tigers are 2-3 after back-to-back losses to Big Ten members Ohio State and Rutgers. Colgate is 1-4-2, including 0-1-2 in the its last three, which were 0-0 ties against Maine and Cornell and a 3-1 loss to George Washington. 

Kickoff on Myslik Field is at 7.

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The men's soccer team defeated UMass 2-0 Monday night in Amherst to improve to 3-0-1. The Tigers, ranked 23rd, have allowed just one goal in those four games and none in the last three. 

Princeton swept the Ivy League weekly honors, with Bardia Hormozi as the Offensive Player of the Week and Andrew Samuels as the Defensive Player of the Week. Hormozi was honored for the first time; Samuels now has six such honors. 

Princeton went 3-0 last week (the UMass game included due to the holiday), and Hormozi either scored or assisted on five of them. Hormozi was a first-team All-Ivy League selection last year after having six goals and four assists for the season; he already has three goals and three assists through four games. He also plays with obvious confidence to go along with incredible field vision. 

Next up for the men is a game Saturday (6) at Albany.   

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The field hockey team has its only home appearance in its first seven games tomorrow at 5 when it hosts Rutgers. The Tigers, after a 4-0 win against Old Dominion and a 1-0 shootout loss to North Carolina last weekend, are currently ranked fourth nationally, while the Scarlet Knights are No. 17.

Sophomore Gabriella Anderson was the Ivy League's Defensive Player of the Week after she played all 135 minutes of the two games as Princeton did not allow a single goal. She also converted her attempt in the shootout when it would have ended the game there had she not.  

It'll be a homecoming on Bedford Field for Princeton alum Talia Schenck, who is a grad student at Rutgers. Speaking of Princeton alums on other teams, congratulations to Grace Anne McCooey, who scored her first career goal, which turned out to be the game-winner, as Syracuse defeated Rutgers 3-2 last Friday. 

One of the great things about college sports is the friendships that are built, and to that end, every Princeton player was thrilled for McCooey — who used to be known as "Gooey" and then became just "GAM" a year ago. 

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The complete schedule can be found HERE.