Welcoming

There is something fascinating to TigerBlog about borders.

Not Andrew Borders, his longtime friend and colleague, though Andrew has his fascinating moments. Just land borders. 

Take this street for instance: 

That's Vermont on the left side of the road and Quebec on the right. In other words, one side is the United States and the other is Canada – and crossing the street without proper procedures is illegal. There are 14 houses there, seven in each country. 

Fascinating.

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Welcome to Crossover Season. The women's hockey team opens its season this weekend at home against UConn, with games tomorrow at 6 and Saturday at 3. As a bonus, the men's hockey team has an exhibition game against Maryville at Hobey Baker Rink at 7 Saturday. 

If you recall a year ago, Princeton's women began their season and ended their season against UConn, falling in two games to start the season in Storrs and then again with a loss in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. How many days elapsed between the second game and NCAA game? That would be 145.

The men's and women's swimming and diving teams also begin their seasons tomorrow, when they host Villanova beginning at 5. 

Hockey? Swimming? Already? 

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While the subject is "welcome," TigerBlog would like to welcome his newest colleague, Gianna Sanzone, who comes to the Office of Athletic Communications from Syracuse. She is recommended highly by SU's John Stark, who in turn comes highly recommended from TigerBlog. 

Gianna will be the OAC sport contact for  women's volleyball, m/w cross country, m/w track and field, wrestling and men's volleyball. In other words, she'll be diving right in. 

As an aside, it's possible that TigerBlog is older than everyone else in the OAC combined, or maybe it just feels that way. 

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Okay, TB will stay with that theme. 

Welcome to a busy, and important, weekend for the fall teams, who are now in the hunt for Ivy League titles and tournament spots.

The main rival this weekend is Cornell, with two Princeton teams in Ithaca and another in Princeton. Going chronologically, it'll be Princeton at Cornell in field hockey tomorrow at 5; both teams are 3-1 and tied for second in the Ivy League. Because of future matchups and complex scenarios, Cornell could clinch an Ivy tournament spot with a win and some other results, while Princeton cannot mathematically do so this weekend. 

The women's soccer team is also at Cornell, Saturday at 1. Princeton is currently tied with the Big Red with three points after three league games (1-2); the race for the four ILT spots will be, as usual, crowded. 

On the men's side, Princeton is home Saturday at six against the Big Red in a game that matches the two highest-rated Ivy teams in the Division I RPI as of right now. Cornell, 7-3-0 overall, is 17th. Princeton, 6-2-4 overall, is 25th.  

As far as the league race looks now, it too is very bunched. Cornell is the only unbeaten at 3-0-0, while the other seven teams are all within five points of each other as the race reaches the halfway point. Princeton has four points at 1-1-1, tied with Penn and Dartmouth for third.  

There is also a women's volleyball trip to Harvard (6 tomorrow) and Dartmouth (5 Saturday). Right now, the Ivy standings have at least a hint of separation, with Cornell at 5-0, Yale at 4-1, Princeton and Harvard at 3-2, Penn and Brown at 2-3, Columbia at 1-4 and Dartmouth at 0-5. 

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Welcome back to Rickerson Field, Princeton women's rugby. The Tigers are 4-1 on the season after a 55-14 loss last weekend to Dartmouth, but perhaps the loss is the best barometer of just how far this team has come in a short time. 

As TB mentioned a week ago, Princeton women's rugby was outscored by Dartmouth 253-17 in the first three meetings between the teams. That's an average margin of defeat of 79 points per game. The Tigers cut that to 41 this time around. Progress isn't always measured just by wins. 

The Tigers host Mount St. Mary's Saturday at noon at Rickerson. 

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Welcome to the Meadows Complex to those competing in the women's ITA Regionals, which start today at 10 am. You can see two Princeton women play at that time: Anna Nguyen and Maren Urata. Princeton's Alice Ferlito, Bella Chhiv, Berklie Simmerling, Anna Maria Fedatova, Tsehay Driscoll, Lilian Liu, Maddie Jessup and Pearlie Zhang all play singles tomorrow as well. 

Ferlito is the No. 2 seed on the singles side. Ferlito and Jessup are the No. 1 seed in doubles, which also start tomorrow. Other than the two matches at 10 am, none of the other Princeton players have a start time yet. Complete tournament information is HERE.

The men's side of the ITA Regionals will be at Penn, also starting today. That information is HERE. 

The two singles finalists and the doubles winners will advance to the NCAA individual tournament, to be held next month at Athens, Ga. The tournaments run through Tuesday.

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Welcome to the complete weekend schedule, which can be accessed HERE. 

Great Job, Shell

TigerBlog continues to try to figure out how to use all of the features of his new camera. 

He'd guess he knows about 10 percent of what it's capable of doing. It's like PhotoShop — TB knows how to do the things he needs to know, but there's a whole world in that program that he still doesn't get. 

TB's photos are slowly getting better, though there's a long way to go before he'd say he's good at it. Serviceable, and willing to learn. And speaking of photography ...  

The Ford Electrifying Highlight of the Week for this past week was, not surprisingly, Ella Cashman's overtime goal to defeat then No. 1 Northwestern Sunday. 

By the way, Princeton's and Northwestern's rankings in the coaches' poll weren't all that affected by the outcome. The Tigers went from No. 10 to No. 9. Northwestern went from No. 1 to No. 2 (Maryland is now No. 1). More importantly, Princeton's RPI jumped to No. 5. 

Anyway, this isn't about field hockey, at least not directly. Field hockey is just the vehicle to get to the main point. 

So check out Cashman's goal: 

The Score & The Roar! @TigerFH toppled #1 Northwestern in overtime to earn @Ford Electrifying Highlight of the Week! https://t.co/IuX4GJ9juN

— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) October 13, 2026

Look at how long Cashman is airborne with her fist raised in that clip. It's a millisecond, right? 

Now check out this photo:

That's perfect timing, right? The best pictures are the ones that tell the entire story at once, and this one clearly accomplishes that. You have the celebration. You have the counter-emotions of the other team. You have the ref who is confirming it all. 

It reminds TigerBlog of what might be the most famous picture in Princeton Athletics history, the one of current Tiger head coach Mitch Henderson after the 1996 NCAA tournament win over UCLA. Like the photo of Mitch with his arms extended over his head in triumph, the photo freezes the moment forever, even if the moment lasted less than a second in reality.  

Here is the woman who took the photo Sunday at Bedford Field. 

If you're a frequent visitor to Princeton games, then she should look familiar, even if you don't know who she is. After all, she is basically everywhere.

Her name is Shelley Szwast, and photography isn't even her full-time gig. She came to the attention of the athletic department when she was just shooting women's hockey for fun. Now she's a staple with the Tigers — a beloved  staple at that. Ask any Princeton coach or athlete about her and they'll all say "WE LOVVVVVVE SHELLEY." 

The game Sunday was played in a driving rainstorm, just like so many others that Shelley has covered. She's in the freezing rink all winter. She's at early-season lacrosse games when the snow lines the sidelines. She's at early season fall sports when the temperature is near 100. 

It doesn't matter to her. She just loves to shoot, because she just loves the Tigers.  

TigerBlog asked Shelley what her schedule had been for the last two weeks. Here is what she said: 

Two team photos, three media days, ten games, three other events/lectures. Team photos were at the same place/time. Softball was a double header. So 16/18 depending on if you count the double header and both team photos.  

How many photos has she taken in that time? It's countless. 

The shot of Cashman's game-winner was perfect, and TigerBlog isn't the only one who noticed. He got this message about the photo from as big a Princeton fan as there is:

"Congratulations to Shelley Szwast. That photograph that she took is fantastic. Look at everybody's face in that photo. Ella celebrating with the two other Princeton players. The Northwestern player. Most of all the ref. That guy is fired up. There's just a lot going on in this photograph. It's fantastic. Tell Shelley great job."

Done. 

Great job, Shelley. As always.  

 

Are You What Your Record Says You Are?

Had a bounce here or there been just a little different, then the Princeton field hockey team wouldn't have brought four losses into its game Sunday against No. 1 Northwestern. 

Unfortunately for the Tigers, those bounces went against them in a series of one shootout after another, resulting in those four losses. It put Princeton into the extraordinary circumstance of being unbeaten in 11v11 play and yet with four defeats in four shootouts — to teams whose RPIs are now No. 1, 3, 4 and 15. 

So are you, indeed, what your record says you are, as that great football coach always said? Or, in the rarest of occasions, can you be more than your record? 

TigerBlog isn't sure. Four losses are four losses, right? Or is it different if you haven't been beaten through regulation or overtime? 

If any team falls into that latter category, it's the current Princeton field hockey team. TigerBlog has never seen a team quite like this one. Even the 1988 Princeton men's basketball team, which lost three straight mid-season Ivy games on buzzer beaters to fallout of contention and then blasted league champ Cornell on the final day of the regular season as a prelude to the next four years, all of which ended with an Ivy title, lost those three games in what TB would call "the run of play."

The shootout, as TB has said multiple times this year, doesn't feel like the right way to decide a game that is even after 60 minutes of regulation and then 15 more minutes of overtime (that's 11v11, not the 7v7 of years past). A tie would be fine with him. The ice hockey system of awarding a point for a shootout loss would be better. Penalty strokes would be better, since those are things that actually happen in field hockey, as opposed to eight-second breakaways with multiple shots permitted.

With all of those four shootouts reversed, Princeton would be flying high. With half of them reversed, Princeton would be nearly a lock for home games in the NCAA tournament. With those four shootout losses, though, nothing is certain. 

If nothing else, it messes with a team's psyche. Is this just not our year? Did we get all of our good luck in last year? 

Ah, last year. You remember that. Princeton ran all the way to the NCAA championship game, falling in double overtime to Sunday's visitor, Northwestern.

Were the gods or the odds or whatever stacked against Princeton this time around? Three of those shootout losses came consecutively, against three of the top four RPI teams. The Tigers could be forgiven for scratching their heads a bit.

From what he's seen from his front row seat, though, TB can say that this isn't a team that has lacked confidence. It's a team that continues to play with great cohesion. It's a team that still believes it can beat anyone. 

At the same time, it was also a team that had its last chance at a Top 5 win in the regular season with the Northwestern game. So what happened? 

Princeton defeated Northwestern 2-1 in overtime (but not the dreaded shootout), in the driving rain that has been as much a part of this season as those shootouts. Pru Lindsey tied the game with just 1:13 to go on a penalty stroke, and she then fed across the cage to Ella Cashman for the winner with 5:42 left in the OT. 

Here are some numbers for you:

* Northwestern is now 36-2 in it last 38 games, with both losses to Princeton
* Northwestern has now lost in the regular season to Princeton each of the last two seasons, ending long winning streaks each time (15 games, 23 games)
* Princeton remained unbeaten in games that haven't gone to shootouts
* Princeton's RPI jumped from No. 9 last week to No. 5 now 

They were obviously happy Tigers when it ended, as well they should have been. The win vaulted them right back into the national conversation, somewhat similarly to a year ago. And it was dramatic, coming the way it did with the late goal to tie it and then winning it in overtime.

But it was also a businesslike celebration. This season could be a long way from over. 

Is this team what it's record says it is? The Tigers are 8-4. They don't feel like an 8-4 team. 

The story of the first part of the season was shootout losses. What will the story the rest of the way be?  

Touchdown Honda

When TigerBlog was a kid, there weren't too many ways to see highlights from Sunday NFL football. 

The best way, of course, was Howard Cosell's highlights at halftime of Monday Night Football — if you could stay up that late. There was also "This Week In Pro Football" on Saturdays, with Pat Summerall, Tom Brookshier and the greatest soundtrack ever. 

Here, check this out, from Week 1 of the 1973 NFL season:

Ah, TigerBlog gets teary from watching (and listening) to them. 

These days, of course, there are highlights everywhere, posted immediately on social media. Who needs to read the postgame story when you've already seen all of the highlights? 

Anyway, TigerBlog just wanted to share that with you before he vaults back into the 2026 football season. 

Before he gets to Princeton's 28-13 win at Wagner Saturday, he does have a few other things.

First, there was the death at the end of last week of Mike Ditka, a legendary tight end and even more legendary coach of Da Bears. He became a cultural phenomenon in a way few other football players ever have. He was also the head coach of the single most dominant team TB has ever seen, the 1985 Bears. Of course, there are those who would say that the real brains behind the team was defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, and the tension between the two of them was fairly well known.

Then there was the end of the game between Washington and the Giants yesterday, which ended in a 27-27 tie. It should have ended in a 30-27 Washington win, except the Commanders shockingly 1) ran a play when they were within range of a 40-yard field goal, 2) had no timeouts remaining and 3) went down in the middle of the field to allow time to expire. 

TB's favorite part of the game was this:

 

That's the coin toss before the overtime, and it's what it looks like when you send out a (Tremaine Edwards) and they send out their punter. By the way, Washington punter Tress Way is, if you can believe it, 6-1, 220, to give you a sense of how big Edwards is. 

Also, there was the whole "Trojan Horse" thing from Oregon, before its game against UCLA. Did they not realize that they played USC last week? Either way, UCLA won the game to improve to 5-0, making TB's friend and colleague and UCLA alum Andrew Borders quite happy. 

Meanwhile, there are the Tigers. Princeton's win on Staten Island Saturday made the team 3-1 on the season, with a 1-0 Ivy record with six league games to go. 

The win Saturday was the 87th as Princeton head coach for Bob Surace. The school record? It's 89 from Bill Roper, and it's stood since 1930. 

Then there is the touchdown machine that is Kai Honda. A week after rushing for 219 yards and four touchdowns in the win over Columbia, Honda had another big day, going for 103 yards and two more touchdowns. 

Through four games, he's putting up extraordinary numbers. First of all, he has 56 carries and eight touchdowns. That's one TD every seven carries. Not surprisingly, he leads the Ivy League in rushing touchdowns, and he's also leading the league and fifth in the FCS with 7.29 yards per carry. If you're wondering, the single-season record for rushing yards per carry is 6.4, by the great Keith Elias in 1992. 

Also of his 56 carries, only two have gone for loss. That's also a pretty good stat. 

Honda is on a pace for 20 rushing touchdowns, something only two players at Princeton have accomplished. One is John Lovett, who had 20 in 2018. The other is Philip King, who had 29 back in 1889.

Princeton once again ran it more times than it threw it (40-30), with Wyatt Becker and Ty Ciongoli a combined 15 for 30 for 198 yards and a touchdown (Becker to Josh Smith). Brady Clark punted three times for a 41.3 yard average, with all three punts inside the 20. 

The first of those six straight Ivy games comes up Saturday at noon, when Brown will be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.  

Kicking It Off At Wagner

Tomorrow is Oct. 10.

It will be Game Day for Princeton Football, who kicks off at Wagner at noon. 

November 10, one month from tomorrow, will be a Game Day for another Princeton team, the women's basketball team. If you can believe it, Nov. 10 will be Game Day No. 4 for those Tigers. 

The season opens Nov. 2 at home against Belmont, with a trip to Richmond to take on the Spiders and then Belmont on Nov. 6 and 8. The game on the 10th will be home against Villanova. 

If four games by No. 10 seems like a lot, there are five more games in the month of November, with a trip to California to play at UCLA and Pepperdine and home games against Rutgers, George Mason and Georgia Tech. 

As you know the team that plays those games will be led by first-year head coach Lauren Gosselin. As you also know, you need to add Northwestern to the list of women's basketball teams you'll be rooting for moving forward. 

The Ivy League had its women's basketball media conference call yesterday, one day after announcing its preseason media poll. There's no surprise about the top three — Princeton, Columbia and Harvard, in that order. Those three have dominated the league of late and figure to do so again. 

Of course, while the women's basketball season begins soon, it also runs for a long time, into March. As such there will be a lot more time ahead to talk about the Tigers, Gosselin and the way the season unfolds. 

As for the football team, the game is the final non-league matchup of the regular season. Princeton has won two straight after an opening loss, including a dominant 35-7 win over Columbia in the Ivy League opener last weekend, also in New York City. 

Wagner, a member of the Northeast Conference, enters the game at 1-4, 0-2 in its league. Of its two losses, one came at the hands of James Madison (you might remember that team from last year's college football playoff) and California (from the Pac 12, um, Atlantic Coast Conference).

If you're looking for a great view, by the way, Wagner's stadium offers that. 

The Seahawks are coached by Tom Masella, who was himself a great player for the team back in the early 1980s. Masella also used to be the head coach at Fordham and Central Connecticut before returning to his alma mater. 

For Princeton, the game tomorrow is a great chance to keep the momentum going heading into the stretch of six Ivy League games in six weeks. That momentum includes the 219-yard, four-TD rushing day that Kai Honda had last week against Columbia. 

Princeton's biggest weapon might not be Honda. It might just be its punter Brady Clark, who would be leading all of college football (FBS, FCS, D2, D3) with a 52.7 yard average, though to be ranked a punter needs to average 3.6 punts per game, which after three games would be 10.8 and Clark has only had seven total punts. 

You can read more about Clark HERE, in a feature story from Craig Sachson. It includes this: 

Clark, whose punting average would break the Ivy League record by more than seven yards, has developed a process for handling his in-game responsibilities. While teammates generate the raw emotion to help them reach their athletic peak, he knows he needs to remain calm and grounded. 

Princeton leads the Ivy League in rushing offense, helped mightily by Honda, whose 101.7 yards per game are one behind Columbia's Griffin Johnson for the league lead. Somewhat interestingly, at least to TigerBlog, is that Princeton leads the league in rushing yards but is only sixth in the league in rushing attempts. 

That's impressive stuff.

Princeton is also last in the league in passing yards per game. Princeton has run it 100 times and thrown it 63 times though its first three games. Woody Hayes would be proud — he's the one who famously said "there are only three things that can happen when you throw the ball and two of them are bad." Then again, he also had his career as the legendary Ohio State coach end when he punched a guy on the other team in a bowl game. 

Next up for Princeton will be a home game against Brown a week from tomorrow, with kickoff at noon.  

Dr. Rolle Speaks And The Coming Weekend For The Tigers

Have you turned your heat on yet? 

This is like the air conditioning when it gets hot in April. You know you probably would be more comfortable if you turn it on. You also know you're opposed to doing so before a certain date — and that date has not yet been reached.  

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TigerBlog met Myron Rolle at a reception when he was a football player at the Hun School in Princeton. 

Even though Rolle was 17 or so at the time, there was no doubt that this was someone who was special. He was the top high school football player in the country. He was a student with few peers. He carried himself in a humble manner, despite those two qualities. 

TB only met him that one time, but he's followed his career ever since. He has not been surprised at all at Rolle's trajectory, which has taken him from Hun to Florida State, where he was an All-American defensive back, to Oxford as a Rhodes' Scholar, to the NFL draft and then back to Florida State medical school. 

Whose resume does that sound like? Does the name Bill Bradley ring a bell?  

These days, Rolle is a pediatric neurosurgeon at Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando, Fla. If TB went back to that day he met Rolle, he wouldn't have been surprised at all by that. 

You can hear Dr. Rolle speak tonight as in McCosh 10 at 7:30 as part of the Mills The Sports, Race and Society Lecture, made possible by the Stephen C. Mills '81 Fund. It is co-sponsored by the Center for African American Studies and the Department of Athletics, in partnership with the Princeton Black Pre-Medical Society.

For more information and to RSVP, click HERE.

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What's the most intriguing game on the Princeton Athletics weekend schedule? TigerBlog gives you two options. 

First, there's the women's rugby game against Dartmouth Saturday at 11 am on Rickerson Field. The upstart Tigers are 4-0 on the season and have outscored their opponents by a combined 328-17. 

Dartmouth is the establishment, at least as far as Ivy women's rugby teams. The Big Green have outscored Princeton 253-17 in the three games between the teams to date. 

What will happen Saturday? It'll be fascinating to see. 

The other intriguing game will be Sunday at noon, when the field hockey team hosts Northwestern. A year ago, these two played in the NCAA championship game, won by Northwestern 2-1 in double overtime. 

Princeton is also home tomorrow at five against Dartmouth. Northwestern, who is home tomorrow against Iowa, is 39-1 in its last 40 games, with only a 3-2 loss to Princeton in Evanston a year ago in the regular season. 

Princeton enters the weekend 6-4 — with its four losses all in shootouts, to No. 2, No. 4, No. 7 and No. 9 in this week's poll. 

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It is still ridiculously early in the Ivy League women's volleyball season. Right now, after each team has played only three league matches, there are four 2-1 teams (Princeton, Yale, Brown and Harvard), with a 3-0 team (Cornell), a 1-2 team (Penn) and two 0-3 teams (Columbia, Dartmouth). 

Princeton is home this weekend, against Yale tomorrow (6) and against Brown Saturday (5). 

Meanwhile, the Ivy League soccer races are heading into their midpoints, with very bunched standings as well. 

On the women's side, Princeton is in a four-way tie for third place, along with Dartmouth, Columbia and Cornell, with three points apiece. Harvard is in first now with six, followed by Brown with four. Princeton is home Saturday at 7 against Penn, who is in seventh place with one point. 

So much can change, actually will change, weekend to weekend. The same is true on the men's side. 

Princeton is at Columbia tomorrow at 5. Here's how it looks on the men's side right now: Cornell has six points, Penn has four, Princeton as three (as do Dartmouth and Harvard), with Columbia, Brown and Yale with one each. 

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The complete weekend schedule is HERE. 

The Winner

So if your team plays 224 games and wins 169 of them, is that good? 

That's better than winning three out of every four times out. Yeah, that seems pretty good. 

Can you guess whose numbers those are? TigerBlog will get back to that in a few moments. 

First, there was THIS STORY that he saw on the "Awful Announcing" website. The subject is Princeton's own Ross Tucker, one of the more fascinating Tiger athletic alums of this century. 

For starters, how many were invited to Taylor Swift's wedding? Or played for seven years as an offensive lineman in the NFL, including being one of the blockers on the field for Emmitt Smith when he set the league's record for career rushing yards? 

For another, how many have a running series on social media dedicated to press box media food? You can throw in his football media empire, which seems to have him in front of the public at all times. And there's his 6-4, 250-pound frame — and a personality that is twice that size. 

TigerBlog remembers writing about Tucker as a senior in 1999, when he said that he was hoping to get into an NFL training camp after graduation for the purpose of seeing if they'd let him keep his helmet when he was cut. He didn't get to find out, since as TB mentioned, he had a long playing career. 

TB helped Tucker get his start in media on the Ivy League television package, and Tucker's career has skyrocketed. If you didn't read the story, he has moved up to the No. 2 CBS broadcast team, working with Ian Eagle and Evan Washburn (a former lacrosse player at Delaware, by the way).

The point of the story is how Tucker realized as it unfolded that an apparent New England fumble wasn't actually, since it came on a punt after a member of the kicking team (in this case Buffalo) had touched it previously. The gist is that Tucker knew the rules, while it appeared nobody else (the refs, the fans, Eagle) did. 

As you know, TigerBlog is on the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse rules committee, so he values the importance of knowing the rules and how they can impact somewhat random situations. He wonders how many coaches and players across all sports really do have that understanding.

Good for Ross for knowing immediately. And it's great to see how well he's doing. 

Okay, back to all that winning. Any idea who that is? Or, more specifically, who she is? 

Hint — She's a basketball player. Another hint — Her resume includes Ivy League championships, an NCAA championship and now a shot at a WNBA championship.

The answer is, of course, Kaitlyn Chen, Princeton Class of 2024. Chen is the only Ivy League athlete in any sport to be a three-time Ivy League tournament Most Outstanding Player. She scored 1,276 points in three Princeton seasons; no other Tiger women's basketball player has ever scored more while only playing three years. 

She went from Princeton to UConn for a graduate year, and she started every game as the point guard for the Huskies 2025 NCAA championship team. She's now in her second year on the WNBA's Golden State Valkeries, who take a 1-0 series lead into tonight's Game 2 of the best of three semifinal series against the Las Vegas Aces. 

With the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx already eliminated, the Valkyries are the highest remaining seed. That's not bad for a second-year franchise. 

Chen averaged 7.2 points per game for the season as one of the top players off the bench in the league. She also tied for 10th in the league in field goal percentage at 52.7 percent — that's tied with A'ja Wilson by the way. 

Chen, who scored 11 points in the Game 1 win, is a human spark plug for her team, or any team she is on. The energy she brings is obvious, whether she's on the court or the bench. 

It's no wonder winning her follows her everywhere she goes. 

Here are her records (including WNBA playoff games): 

Princeton 25-5 (2021-22)
Princeton 24-6 (2022-23)
Princeton 25-5 (2023-24)
UConn 37-3 (2024-25)
Golden State 23-23 (2025, expansion team)
Golden State 35-13 (2026, still in playoffs)

You know what would be great in the next few weeks? 

Championships for Kaitlyn Chen and Will Venable.  

Will Wins Again

Who doesn't want to see a picture of a 91 year old in a Patrick Mahomes jersey? 

As TigerBlog mentioned last month, he got his father a Mahomes jersey for his 91st birthday. Now it has entered his regular Sunday routine, which includes watching his favorite player and hence his favorite team. 

TB isn't sure why his father has become such a huge fans of Mahomes and the Chiefs. For his entire life, FB has only ever rooted for New York teams — dating back to when he was the rare New York Giants fan in Brooklyn. 

Oh, and before TB gets into that, he wants to say that he is 100 percent sure that is FatherBlog in that photo. Have there been times he's gotten that wrong? 

The first media guide TigerBlog ever did (if you don't know what a media guide was, TB thinks there might be some in the Smithsonian) had a huge picture of then captain Carl Teter on the very first page. Ah, but there was one slight issue — it wasn't Teter in the photo. The same is true of the picture on the cover of the final game at Palmer Stadium back in 1996. 

It was supposed to be Dick Kazmaier. It looked like Dick Kazmaier. It said "Dick Kazmaier" on the back of the photo. The player was wearing No. 42. Turned out it wasn't Dick Kazmaier. 

TB brings this up to offer an apology for posting the wrong clip during the field hockey team's win over Temple Sunday. The clip was supposed to be of Clem Houlden's goal off a penalty corner, only it was the corner before the one she scored on a few seconds later. 

When you're in the business of putting out tons of content in public, mistakes will happen. Fortunately, unlike with media guides and game programs, at least they can be corrected these days. TB apologizes for this error. There will almost surely be others at some point; TB will say his average is still pretty good.

Okay, back at the New York Giants, the ones who played baseball at the Polo Grounds. FatherBlog has told the story often about how he was a Giants' fan in Brooklyn, where everyone else was a Dodger fan. He said that in the 1951 playoff between the Giants and Dodgers (after they tied for the National League pennant; somewhere in the Smithsonian there's also something that explains that until 1969, each league was its own division and the winners simply played in the World Series). 

When the Giants and Dodgers tied in 1951, there was a best-of-three playoff, won in three games by the Giants when Bobby Thomson hit his legendary three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth of Game 3 for a 5-4 win. FatherBlog said that he had bet all of his friends on the series and paid off when the Giants were down 4-1 entering the ninth; he had to scramble to get all his money afterwards. 

Baseball in October has been as much a part of the fabric of Americana as anything. There were decades when Major League Baseball (and boxing, for that matter) were way bigger than the NFL, and the history of the sport, especially this time of year, is filled with legends. 

Will the 2026 Chicago White Sox be added to that list? 

The White Sox defeated Cleveland 4-3 yesterday to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five Divisional Series against the Cleveland Guardians. That's four straight postseason wins for Chicago, all of which have been on the road. 

The series moves to Chicago for Game 3 tomorrow at 4 and Game 4 (if necessary) Thursday at 5, with a possible deciding game back in Cleveland Saturday. 

The White Sox are of course managed by Princeton baseball and basketball alum Will Venable, who already has a World Series ring as a coach with the Texas Rangers in 2023. What Venable continues to do with his team is just extraordinary.

If you consider that in four playoff games the White Sox have won 10 percent of the number of games they won all of 2024, the year before Venable took over. They went from 41 wins two years ago to 60 last year. This year the record was 84-78 in the regular season and now 4-0 in the playoffs. 

TB watched the game yesterday. It was clear just how controlled Venable was the entire game, from the time the team fell behind 2-0 in the first inning through its sixth-inning rally to take the lead. 

When Venable was at Princeton, he was the same way. Steely eyed. Focused. Measured. And ultra-competitive. 

How far can he take this? Hey, nobody imagined the team would still be playing this deep into October. 

It'll take nine more wins for Venable's team to win the World Series. Why not them, right?  

Amid Sorrow, A Big Win

On any other Monday, TigerBlog would be starting off with the joyful news of Princeton's 35-7 win over Columbia Saturday afternoon. 

This was not a normal weekend in Ivy League football though. Not after the news that broke Friday afternoon.

Regardless of which of the eight teams is yours, this was a weekend of sorrow in Ivy football, with the passing of former Yale coach Tony Reno at the age of just 52. A year ago he was a vibrant coach in his prime. Today he is gone. 

The unfairness of life once again makes its presence known. And once again, all of the league's fans are left with the same emotions that they felt when Dartmouth's Buddy Teevens was taken three years ago — whether you met either man or not.

TigerBlog never met either, and yet he felt a sense of loss as well. Maybe it's because he's close with people who were very close to both Teevens and Reno who always spoke highly of them and were directly touched by the news. 

One of TB's first thoughts was of Reno's son Dante, the Bulldogs' quarterback. Would he play so soon after his father's passing? He missed the previous game due to an injury. Would he be physically and mentally able to play?  

Turns out he was. Reno completed 22 of 39 passes for 298 yards and four touchdowns in a 41-27 win over Merrimack. Can you imagine the emotions he felt? This is from a postgame story:  

 “He was a warrior; he was a fighter. He lived by the core values of the program,” Dante Reno told reporters after the game. “He loved football, loved his family. Just an overall great dude, great coach and an even better dad.”

This is what Princeton head coach Bob Surace posted on X:

💔 Amazing coach. Incredible husband and father. Grateful for our friendship

— Bob Surace '90 (@CoachBobSurace) October 2, 2026

As for Surace's team, TigerBlog goes back to something he mentioned Friday: 

"Ordinarily, time of possession doesn't really tell you much. A team that can score quickly can have a lot of points and not a lot of possession time."

Columbia had almost twice the time of possession as Princeton — 39:39 to 20:21. And all of that added up to 35-7 Tigers.

Why? It's because Kai Honda became untackleable, of such a word exists. How did he do? 

Well, are these numbers good: 14 carries, 219 yards, four touchdowns, 15.6 yards per rush. That's a lot of everything, except for carries. 

TB starts with the 15.6 yards per rush. That's a new school record; the old one was set by Bill Tryon in 1951 against Lafayette. That was a famous game by the way. Princeton won 60-7 the week before a huge showdown against Cornell, so then coach Charlie Caldwell hardly played the starters. Tryon, who was Dick Kazmaier's backup that season, got the chance and ran for 161 yards on 11 carries, or 14.6 per. 

Honda scored on touchdown runs of 40, 7, 53 and 70 yards. It conjured up memories of Michael Lerch's famous five-touchdown reception game against Brown back in 1991. 

Lerch caught nine passes for 370 yards that day, for an average of 41.1 yards per reception. That record will stand forever. Will anyone catch Honda? He also leads the FCS now in average yards per rush at 8.97, which would also be the Ivy League record if he can keep it going. 

TB has never met Honda, though he's willing to guess that he would credit his offensive line for opening gaping holes for him all day. Of course, he was the one who had to drive through them. 

When you have that kind of an explosive day, you don't need a lot of possession time. Or plays, to be more exact. Columbia ran 82 of them. Princeton ran 47 of them. 

The Tigers ran 31 times and threw it only 16. The Lions threw it 51 times. 

Junior linebacker Connor Cronin continued his breakout season with a team-best 10 tackles. Torian Roberts had six tackles, all solo, with an interception (and 25 yard return), and Jake Moore and AJ Pigford had 1.5 sacks each. 

Next up is a trip to Wagner, with its incredible stadium view. After that, it's six more Ivy games, but being 1-0 in the league is something that has to make you smile — until you remember what they're going through at Yale. 

Condolences to the entire Bulldog program, especially to Coach Reno's family.  

 

Ivy Kickoff

First things first. 

Congrats to Will Venable, who has taken his Chicago White Sox into the second round of the Major League playoffs with a sweep of the Houston Astros. What Venable has done in his first two seasons as the manager is extraordinary. 

Next up is the Division Series against Cleveland. This one is best-of-five. 

Also, TigerBlog will be at the field hockey game against Yale this afternoon, which starts at 5 on Bedford Field. 

It can't go to another shootout, can it? That's enough about that. 

Anyway, today's subject is football, specifically Princeton's Ivy League opener tomorrow at Columbia. Kickoff in New York City is at noon. 

Before TB gets into that matchup, he would like to share a picture from last week's 22-0 Princeton win over Albany. Here you go: 

This shot comes courtesy of Ryan Samson. The subject is Princeton wide receiver Jackson Green, who is celebrating a reception in the game. It almost looks more like a preseason media day photo against a fake background, but it most assuredly is not. 

You also have this picture of Green, by the way. This one comes from last Memorial Day: 

Green spends the spring as an All-American shortstick defensive midfielder for the Princeton men's lacrosse team. He was a huge part of the team's NCAA championship last spring. 

Almost nobody comes through a college career with those two photos. You have to be a two-sport athlete, and you have to win a national championship in one of them. You also have to have a big smile. Green checks all the boxes. 

Speaking of Princeton wide receivers, Joey Wassler caught his first career touchdown pass in last week's game against the Great Danes. He's also the subject of a Craig Sachson feature story, one that mentions that Wassler is one of six siblings. Here's something from the story that you might like: 

"They're all huge," Joey says of brothers David, Jackson, Jacob and Josh (sister Samantha is a basketball/volleyball standout as well). "We would beat the crap out of each other in the backyard. If my brother scored 20 points in his morning basketball game, I went to my afternoon game looking for 21. That competitive spirit wasn't just about athletics, but academics as well. My siblings are great students too." 

You can read the story HERE.

Okay, now for the game tomorrow. 

Columbia is 2-0 after overtime wins against Lafayette and Georgetown. Princeton defeated Albany after an opening day loss at Bryant. 

Harvard and Cornell both won their Ivy openers last week, against Brown and Yale. In addition to Princeton-Columbia, the other Ivy opener this weekend has Penn at Dartmouth. 

Columbia ranks seventh in the FCS in total offense at 477.5 yards per game. The Lions also lead the Ivy League in rushing offense, something that has helped them to an average time of possession of 34:52, which is third in the FCS.

The Lions, by the way, average 154.5 yards per game on the ground. Of that total, a league-best 122.5 come from Griffin Johnson, who has 36 more per game than any other player in the league. Johnson is averaging 5.0 yards per rush for his career, which is not shocking when you consider that he's averaged 5.0 yards per game for each season as well.  

Ordinarily, time of possession doesn't really tell you much. A team that can score quickly can have a lot of points and not a lot of possession time. In Columbia's case, at least through two games, having the ball that much with that kind of rushing offense suggests a grind-it-out mentality, though that's not necessarily the case. Columbia also averages 323 yards per game through the air. 

Of course, with only two games, the sample size is probably too small to draw any meaningful conclusions based on numbers alone. 

But hey, what numbers favor Princeton? Well, for starters, Princeton is sixth in the FCS in fewest turnovers, with two. TB would much rather be near the top in that stat than in time of possession. 

Both Columbia (at Marist) and Princeton (at Wagner) have their final non-league game next week, which means the winner of this game will get to sit on that 1-0 league record for two weeks. 

There's a long way to go in the Ivy football season. For Princeton and Columbia, it's just kicking off. 

That's at noon tomorrow in New York City, on ESPN+.