Today is the first day of October, which you may or may not have realized.
Sadly, it's getting darker earlier these days. Come Nov. 4, it'll be time to turn the clocks back an hour, and after that it'll be dark out even earlier than 5 in the afternoon. Yeah, that's no fun.
As it gets darker out, sometimes you lose track of what time it actually is. Take Friday night, for instance.
TigerBlog looked up and saw it was 7:50, which hardly seemed possible at that moment for some reason. Then he did some quick math, realizing that it was halftime of a football game that had begun at 6 and so yeah, it really was closing in on 8.
That football game was Princeton-Columbia, the Ivy opener for both. It matched a pair of teams who had started the season with two non-league wins, and it figured to be a good barometer of where both teams stood in the context of the coming league race.
As it turned out, if you're a Princeton fan, Friday night was perfect in a lot of ways. Final score: Princeton 45, Columbia 10.
For all of the big numbers Princeton put up, and TigerBlog will get to those shortly, consider that Princeton put up 45 points on one of the top defenses in the FCS on a night when Jesper Horsted - as big a weapon as there is anywhere - had 23 yards on two receptions.
A week earlier, Horsted caught three touchdown passes against Monmouth. The week before that, he caught two against Butler. He's Princeton's career leader in receiving touchdowns. For Princeton to put up 45 points on a night when Horsted didn't reach the end zone says a lot.
One player who did get there was Stephen Carlson, who caught five passes for 86 yards to go along with two receiving touchdowns.
Carlson has had a remarkable career. He's 6-4, 230 and agile, with great hands. He has 15 career touchdown receptions, and only four players in program history have more. One is Roman Wilson, who is one ahead of Carlson.
The other three are Horsted, the career leader with 20, and then Derek Graham (19) and Kevin Guthrie (also 16). That's it. That's the entire list ahead of Carlson.
TigerBlog watched Graham and Guthrie play for Princeton in the early 1980s, and for all the time since, he thought he'd never see a better tandem. Horsted and Carlson? They're different, and the game is different. But you can make a case for them.
Meanwhile, back at the gaudy numbers, Princeton has, in three games, scored 44, 30 and 30 points - in the first half. Think about that. Also, Princeton has yet to allow a second half point.
Columbia came into the game this weekend ranked second in the FCS in rushing defense, allowing 35 per game. Princeton got more than 10 times that amount, with 360 yards on the ground alone.
The game was 30-10 at the half, which meant it was pretty much over by then. Any doubt was erased when Collin Eaddy went 66 yards for a touchdown on Princeton's first third-quarter possession.
The straw that stirred the drink, as Reggie Jackson used to say about himself, was once again John Lovett though. Lovett was just a force who overwhelmed the game.
For the night, the Tiger quarterback put up 174 rushing yards while scoring two of his own TDs on the ground, to go with the two he threw to Carlson. This came one week after he was named national Player of the Week by two different outlets.
In Lovett, you have a quarterback who is built like a linebacker, who can throw for 332 yards and five touchdowns one week and then run for 174 and two TDs the next and who has a league Player of the Year award already on his resume. That's quite a weapon.
Through three weeks of the season, every team in the league has played one league game, which means four 1-0 teams (Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale). Princeton has Lehigh at home this Saturday at 1, and then it's six straight Ivy games as the sprint to a championship chase begins.
As TB said, it's October now. The Ivy championship will be won in November.
As for September, you can't win a championship then, and Princeton has hardly done that. Still, it was a 3-0 month, one that ended with a perfect Friday night.
Monday, October 1, 2018
Friday, September 28, 2018
Friday Night Lights
Oops.
Unless there's a big game on a particular night, TigerBlog will write the next day's post and then set it to go live in the middle of the night. He meant to set yesterday's to go live at 1:48, except he actually entered 11:48, so it wasn't until the middle of the morning that he noticed the error and made it go live.
In other words, if you were looking for it early in the morning, it wasn't there. TigerBlog apologizes for that.
Speaking of early mornings, there's the latest edition of "Beyond The Stripes." This week's episode of the video series focuses on P.J. Greenbaum, a Naval ROTC student who walked - swam? - onto the men's water polo team this fall.
Greenbaum's family has a long history at Princeton in athletics and in military service, and those are both continuing with the current generation. It's a very inspirational story, and it's definitely worth the 4:27.
You can see it HERE.
Speaking of the men's water polo team, TigerBlog ran into Oliver Schmickel the other day. Oliver is a senior goalie on the men's lacrosse team, but he's spending this fall also as a member of the men's water polo team.
In case you missed yesterday's entry because it wasn't there until after you looked, TigerBlog mentioned that there are three opportunities to see the men's water polo team at DeNunzio Pool this weekend: tomorrow against MIT (11) and Brown (5) and Sunday against Harvard (noon).
There will also be home games in field hockey (Sunday at 1 against Boston University), men's soccer (tomorrow at 1 against Dartmouth) and women's soccer (tomorrow at 4 against Dartmouth), as well as a home women's golf invitational.
The football team is on the road tonight, with the short trip to Columbia. Well, presumably short, depending on traffic and all.
Kickoff tonight is at 6, and you can see the game on ESPNU. The game matches a pair of teams who are 2-0 on the young season, both with two non-league wins.
If you want a completely misleading stat, here's a good one: Both coaches are two games under .500 at their current schools.
That's pretty funny actually.
Yes, Bob Surace is now 40-42 at Princeton. On the other hand, that's after a 2-20 start, leaving him 38-22 in his last 60 games.
Yes, Al Bangoli is 15-17 at Columbia. On the other hand, he inherited a program that had won 15 of its previous 79 games before his arrival. Even better than 15-17, he's 11-2 in his last 13.
Columbia has opened its season with wins over Central Connecticut (44-24) and Georgetown (23-15). A win tonight would make Columbia 3-0 for the second straight year; prior to that, the Lions were 3-0 only three other times since 1940.
If you're looking for a more meaningful number, consider Princeton's rushing offense against Columbia's rushing defense. Through two games, Columbia ranks second in the FCS in rushing defense, allowing 35.0 yards per game.
Princeton, on the other hand, is fifth in the FCS in rushing offense, averaging 304.5 yards per game. Granted, this is the small sample size of two weeks of non-league games, but that really leaps out at you.
Princeton has multiple backs who can go, and have gone, for 35 yards on any given run, for that matter.
Columbia also ranks 22nd in total defense (309 yards per game) and 23rd in scoring defense (19.5). Princeton ranks second in both, with 577.5 yards and 50.5 points.
Princeton is actually ranked ahead of Columbia in total defense (17th) and scoring defense (fifth).
This will of course be a different challenge for Princeton, against a team that 1) has one of the best defenses in the country and 2) that has played Princeton before. Remember, Princeton's first two opponents - Butler and Monmouth - had never played Princeton before, ever in their histories, and so it was a whole new look and feel.
Columbia will not be surprised by anything the Tigers do.
The game against Columbia is Princeton's only Ivy game in the first four weeks. Next week will be a home game against Lehigh, followed by six Ivy games to end the year, of which only two will be on the road - at Harvard and at Yale.
Of course, there will be nobody from Princeton who isn't aware of what happened last year, when Columbia hit on a 63-yard touchdown pass with 1:12 left to shock the Tigers 28-24. That loss did a lot to derail Princeton's hopes of repeating its 2016 Ivy title.
So that's the backdrop for the Ivy opener. There won't be a championship won tonight, and there won't be a championship lost tonight.
Still, it's a good opportunity to get some questions answered.
You already know Princeton has a lot of offensive weapons and a strong defense. You know Columbia is nothing like the Columbia of the past.
It should be a good one to watch.
Unless there's a big game on a particular night, TigerBlog will write the next day's post and then set it to go live in the middle of the night. He meant to set yesterday's to go live at 1:48, except he actually entered 11:48, so it wasn't until the middle of the morning that he noticed the error and made it go live.
In other words, if you were looking for it early in the morning, it wasn't there. TigerBlog apologizes for that.
Speaking of early mornings, there's the latest edition of "Beyond The Stripes." This week's episode of the video series focuses on P.J. Greenbaum, a Naval ROTC student who walked - swam? - onto the men's water polo team this fall.
Greenbaum's family has a long history at Princeton in athletics and in military service, and those are both continuing with the current generation. It's a very inspirational story, and it's definitely worth the 4:27.
You can see it HERE.
Speaking of the men's water polo team, TigerBlog ran into Oliver Schmickel the other day. Oliver is a senior goalie on the men's lacrosse team, but he's spending this fall also as a member of the men's water polo team.
In case you missed yesterday's entry because it wasn't there until after you looked, TigerBlog mentioned that there are three opportunities to see the men's water polo team at DeNunzio Pool this weekend: tomorrow against MIT (11) and Brown (5) and Sunday against Harvard (noon).
There will also be home games in field hockey (Sunday at 1 against Boston University), men's soccer (tomorrow at 1 against Dartmouth) and women's soccer (tomorrow at 4 against Dartmouth), as well as a home women's golf invitational.
The football team is on the road tonight, with the short trip to Columbia. Well, presumably short, depending on traffic and all.
Kickoff tonight is at 6, and you can see the game on ESPNU. The game matches a pair of teams who are 2-0 on the young season, both with two non-league wins.
If you want a completely misleading stat, here's a good one: Both coaches are two games under .500 at their current schools.
That's pretty funny actually.
Yes, Bob Surace is now 40-42 at Princeton. On the other hand, that's after a 2-20 start, leaving him 38-22 in his last 60 games.
Yes, Al Bangoli is 15-17 at Columbia. On the other hand, he inherited a program that had won 15 of its previous 79 games before his arrival. Even better than 15-17, he's 11-2 in his last 13.
Columbia has opened its season with wins over Central Connecticut (44-24) and Georgetown (23-15). A win tonight would make Columbia 3-0 for the second straight year; prior to that, the Lions were 3-0 only three other times since 1940.
If you're looking for a more meaningful number, consider Princeton's rushing offense against Columbia's rushing defense. Through two games, Columbia ranks second in the FCS in rushing defense, allowing 35.0 yards per game.
Princeton, on the other hand, is fifth in the FCS in rushing offense, averaging 304.5 yards per game. Granted, this is the small sample size of two weeks of non-league games, but that really leaps out at you.
Princeton has multiple backs who can go, and have gone, for 35 yards on any given run, for that matter.
Columbia also ranks 22nd in total defense (309 yards per game) and 23rd in scoring defense (19.5). Princeton ranks second in both, with 577.5 yards and 50.5 points.
Princeton is actually ranked ahead of Columbia in total defense (17th) and scoring defense (fifth).
This will of course be a different challenge for Princeton, against a team that 1) has one of the best defenses in the country and 2) that has played Princeton before. Remember, Princeton's first two opponents - Butler and Monmouth - had never played Princeton before, ever in their histories, and so it was a whole new look and feel.
Columbia will not be surprised by anything the Tigers do.
The game against Columbia is Princeton's only Ivy game in the first four weeks. Next week will be a home game against Lehigh, followed by six Ivy games to end the year, of which only two will be on the road - at Harvard and at Yale.
Of course, there will be nobody from Princeton who isn't aware of what happened last year, when Columbia hit on a 63-yard touchdown pass with 1:12 left to shock the Tigers 28-24. That loss did a lot to derail Princeton's hopes of repeating its 2016 Ivy title.
So that's the backdrop for the Ivy opener. There won't be a championship won tonight, and there won't be a championship lost tonight.
Still, it's a good opportunity to get some questions answered.
You already know Princeton has a lot of offensive weapons and a strong defense. You know Columbia is nothing like the Columbia of the past.
It should be a good one to watch.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
27 Smiths
TigerBlog added the men's lacrosse freshmen to the roster on the webpage yesterday.
One of the freshmen is named Jake Stevens, and as part of the process of adding his bio and headshot, TB had to do a search in the content management system for his entry. There's a database that is used, and it keeps a record of every athlete who has had a bio on goprincetontigers.com.
When TB entered "Stevens" and hit return, he laughed at what came up.
There were three possible entries with the last name Stevens: Jake, Cheryl and Liz. Why'd he laugh? There was a lot of randomness to it.
Jake is the current freshman. Cheryl is a former women's basketball player. Liz was a track and field athlete who was also one of the greatest student workers in Office of Athletic Communications history.
TigerBlog wasn't sure how far the database of athletes that is stored on the back end of goprincetontigers.com goes. It didn't go all the way back to the first bios that were created for the website in the late 1990s. In fact, as near has he can tell, it begins with members of the Class of 2006.
That seems sort of random, but okay.
With that in mind, it got TB thinking about how many of each last name there were. If you figure "Smith" and "Jones" might be the biggies, well, there were 27 Smiths but only five Jones. Or Joneses.
What last names might also have been well-represented? There have been six Donovans, of which four are sisters who all have played field hockey here.
Davis? There were 15. Anderson? There were 12. Ryan? Only four? TigerBlog would have thought more.
Oh, Johnson. There were 23 of them. Of those 23, by the way, there are currently four on the football team.
TigerBlog could have done this all day. He's easily amused.
Besides, what else was there to do? There were no Princeton athletic events yesterday, and there are none today.
In fact, in the month of September, there are only five days with no athletic events at all, and three of them are this week, since there weren't any on Monday. The other two were also Mondays, the third and 17th.
It'll pick up again tomorrow, with the start of a very busy weekend.
There are actually three Ivy League games tomorrow night, with one at home, women's volleyball against Brown (and then Yale Saturday).
As for the away games tomorrow, there will be football at Columbia in the Ivy opener for both (at 6, on ESPNU) and field hockey at Yale, also at 6. TigeBlog Jr., by the way, will be the PA announcer for Princeton-Yale field hockey in New Haven.
As for the weekend, there are all kinds of events at home.
The men's water polo team plays three games, against MIT and Brown Saturday and then Harvard Sunday. The field hockey team is home Sunday against Boston University, and there's a women's golf invitational Saturday and Sunday.
The whole schedule is HERE.
There's also a home soccer doubleheader against Dartmouth, with the men at 1 and the women at 4.
This is Week 1 of Ivy men's soccer and Week 2 of Ivy women's soccer. The Princeton men enter with a record of 4-4, and seven of those eight games have been decided by one goal.
In fact, neither team has had more than a one-goal lead at any point of Princeton's last five games. The Tigers have won and lost games on very late goals, including two wins in overtime.
The first Ivy game is against the defending champion Big Green, who are 2-4-2 this year after a 12-3-2 year that included a 6-0-1 run in the league.
Don't let the 2-4-2 fool you; Dartmouth has played a tough schedule. Both teams will be playing with an understanding of the importance of getting off to a good start in the league, with only seven league games to determine a champion.
As for the women, Princeton is one of three teams who won their league opener last week, along with Dartmouth and Columbia. Penn and Harvard tied.
Princeton is the defending champion in women's soccer, and as you're probably aware, the Tigers reached the NCAA quarterfinals a year ago as well. Princeton has played some very good teams in some very tough games so far, and the opportunity for another NCAA run is something that the Tigers would love to get.
Princeton currently has an RPI of 21. There's an automatic bid to the tournament for the team that wins the league.
With so few games in the league, every one of them is huge. Even for Week 1 and Week 2, these games are big for the Princeton men and women.
And they're free. And the weather should be perfect.
One of the freshmen is named Jake Stevens, and as part of the process of adding his bio and headshot, TB had to do a search in the content management system for his entry. There's a database that is used, and it keeps a record of every athlete who has had a bio on goprincetontigers.com.
When TB entered "Stevens" and hit return, he laughed at what came up.
There were three possible entries with the last name Stevens: Jake, Cheryl and Liz. Why'd he laugh? There was a lot of randomness to it.
Jake is the current freshman. Cheryl is a former women's basketball player. Liz was a track and field athlete who was also one of the greatest student workers in Office of Athletic Communications history.
TigerBlog wasn't sure how far the database of athletes that is stored on the back end of goprincetontigers.com goes. It didn't go all the way back to the first bios that were created for the website in the late 1990s. In fact, as near has he can tell, it begins with members of the Class of 2006.
That seems sort of random, but okay.
With that in mind, it got TB thinking about how many of each last name there were. If you figure "Smith" and "Jones" might be the biggies, well, there were 27 Smiths but only five Jones. Or Joneses.
What last names might also have been well-represented? There have been six Donovans, of which four are sisters who all have played field hockey here.
Davis? There were 15. Anderson? There were 12. Ryan? Only four? TigerBlog would have thought more.
Oh, Johnson. There were 23 of them. Of those 23, by the way, there are currently four on the football team.
TigerBlog could have done this all day. He's easily amused.
Besides, what else was there to do? There were no Princeton athletic events yesterday, and there are none today.
In fact, in the month of September, there are only five days with no athletic events at all, and three of them are this week, since there weren't any on Monday. The other two were also Mondays, the third and 17th.
It'll pick up again tomorrow, with the start of a very busy weekend.
There are actually three Ivy League games tomorrow night, with one at home, women's volleyball against Brown (and then Yale Saturday).
As for the away games tomorrow, there will be football at Columbia in the Ivy opener for both (at 6, on ESPNU) and field hockey at Yale, also at 6. TigeBlog Jr., by the way, will be the PA announcer for Princeton-Yale field hockey in New Haven.
As for the weekend, there are all kinds of events at home.
The men's water polo team plays three games, against MIT and Brown Saturday and then Harvard Sunday. The field hockey team is home Sunday against Boston University, and there's a women's golf invitational Saturday and Sunday.
The whole schedule is HERE.
There's also a home soccer doubleheader against Dartmouth, with the men at 1 and the women at 4.
This is Week 1 of Ivy men's soccer and Week 2 of Ivy women's soccer. The Princeton men enter with a record of 4-4, and seven of those eight games have been decided by one goal.
In fact, neither team has had more than a one-goal lead at any point of Princeton's last five games. The Tigers have won and lost games on very late goals, including two wins in overtime.
The first Ivy game is against the defending champion Big Green, who are 2-4-2 this year after a 12-3-2 year that included a 6-0-1 run in the league.
Don't let the 2-4-2 fool you; Dartmouth has played a tough schedule. Both teams will be playing with an understanding of the importance of getting off to a good start in the league, with only seven league games to determine a champion.
As for the women, Princeton is one of three teams who won their league opener last week, along with Dartmouth and Columbia. Penn and Harvard tied.
Princeton is the defending champion in women's soccer, and as you're probably aware, the Tigers reached the NCAA quarterfinals a year ago as well. Princeton has played some very good teams in some very tough games so far, and the opportunity for another NCAA run is something that the Tigers would love to get.
Princeton currently has an RPI of 21. There's an automatic bid to the tournament for the team that wins the league.
With so few games in the league, every one of them is huge. Even for Week 1 and Week 2, these games are big for the Princeton men and women.
And they're free. And the weather should be perfect.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
A Few More Minutes
The Princeton Varsity Club held its annual freshman BBQ Monday night in Jadwin Gym.
TigerBlog stood in the back as the 225 or so freshmen athletes came in and headed to the buffet lines. As he stood there, he tried to figure out which sports the athletes played just by looking at them.
Some were easier than others, since they wore shirts that said "Princeton Squash" or "Princeton Baseball." Others weren't as easy to pick out, since they wore "Princeton Athletics" stuff or just non-Princeton clothes.
It's not easy with 37 varsity teams and nearly 1,000 athletes - or the 225 freshmen - to figure out who plays what.
TigerBlog has always been fascinated by the different paths that athletes take to compete here. How does someone decide to become a swimmer instead of a field hockey player or a tennis player instead of a baseball player?
And, as he has asked before, are athletic skills transferable? Jesper Horsted is a pro prospect in football and baseball. Could he have been a great fencer? A great rower?
Some of it is body type obviously. Certain sports and certain positions within those sports dictate that.
Some of it is opportunity. TB has wondered this about a lot of lacrosse players through the years, especially before the growth of the game. Would they have ever picked up a stick if they'd grown up in the South or West, as opposed to, say Baltimore of Long Island?
Regardless, they all chose their paths, and they all led them to Princeton. The BBQ comes at a time when the initial awe of the school has presumably worn off and the freshmen are starting to get their collective legs under them, in school and in their sports.
For the BBQ Monday night, of course, the issue really wasn't who was on which team. It was that they were all on the same team.
That was part of the message from Mollie Marcoux Samaan, the Ford Family Director of Athletics, who talked to the group about being more than just their teams, about embracing being part of the larger community of Princeton athletes and the University.
TigerBlog listened to Mollie's short talk Monday night. He'd also spent a few minutes with her earlier in the day, recording the podcast entitled "A Few Minutes With Mollie Marcoux Samaan." You can listen to it HERE.
It's obvious from both the podcast and from her speech that Mollie is a huge believer in the values that Princeton Athletics represents. The "Be A Tiger" motto directly ties those values to athletic performance, which is somewhat unique.
The podcast - Molliecast? - covers her own experiences as a student-athlete, which helped develop her belief in the importance of building the right culture. She also talks about other subjects, including the ESPN+ arrangement, and of course her competitive side comes out when she talks about wins and losses.
This is the second podcast TB and Mollie have done, with one back in late June. At the end, they talk about making it a somewhat regular event, and they're going to aim to do them every other week moving forward.
The "Original 11" podcast was also available yesterday on goprincetontigers.com. The podcast talks about Princeton football, with a look back at the 51-9 win over Monmouth and the game coming up Friday night at Columbia (6, ESPNU).
The player interview this week is with John Lovett, the quarterback who has led the Tigers to 101 points in two games. The 50.5 average, by the way, is second in the FCS.
You can hear Lovett HERE. TigerBlog has never met Lovett, but you can tell by watching him that 1) he is a great leader, 2) he is a fearless player, 3) he plays with great intensity and 4) he is a team-first guy. All of this comes out during the podcast, in which he mentions his return from missing last year due to injury and then the start the team has had to far this season, through two weeks at least.
If you're a Princeton fan, you should definitely hear what Mollie has to say.
And the same is true for Lovett.
It's definitely worth a few more minutes.
TigerBlog stood in the back as the 225 or so freshmen athletes came in and headed to the buffet lines. As he stood there, he tried to figure out which sports the athletes played just by looking at them.
Some were easier than others, since they wore shirts that said "Princeton Squash" or "Princeton Baseball." Others weren't as easy to pick out, since they wore "Princeton Athletics" stuff or just non-Princeton clothes.
It's not easy with 37 varsity teams and nearly 1,000 athletes - or the 225 freshmen - to figure out who plays what.
TigerBlog has always been fascinated by the different paths that athletes take to compete here. How does someone decide to become a swimmer instead of a field hockey player or a tennis player instead of a baseball player?
And, as he has asked before, are athletic skills transferable? Jesper Horsted is a pro prospect in football and baseball. Could he have been a great fencer? A great rower?
Some of it is body type obviously. Certain sports and certain positions within those sports dictate that.
Some of it is opportunity. TB has wondered this about a lot of lacrosse players through the years, especially before the growth of the game. Would they have ever picked up a stick if they'd grown up in the South or West, as opposed to, say Baltimore of Long Island?
Regardless, they all chose their paths, and they all led them to Princeton. The BBQ comes at a time when the initial awe of the school has presumably worn off and the freshmen are starting to get their collective legs under them, in school and in their sports.
For the BBQ Monday night, of course, the issue really wasn't who was on which team. It was that they were all on the same team.
That was part of the message from Mollie Marcoux Samaan, the Ford Family Director of Athletics, who talked to the group about being more than just their teams, about embracing being part of the larger community of Princeton athletes and the University.
TigerBlog listened to Mollie's short talk Monday night. He'd also spent a few minutes with her earlier in the day, recording the podcast entitled "A Few Minutes With Mollie Marcoux Samaan." You can listen to it HERE.
It's obvious from both the podcast and from her speech that Mollie is a huge believer in the values that Princeton Athletics represents. The "Be A Tiger" motto directly ties those values to athletic performance, which is somewhat unique.
The podcast - Molliecast? - covers her own experiences as a student-athlete, which helped develop her belief in the importance of building the right culture. She also talks about other subjects, including the ESPN+ arrangement, and of course her competitive side comes out when she talks about wins and losses.
This is the second podcast TB and Mollie have done, with one back in late June. At the end, they talk about making it a somewhat regular event, and they're going to aim to do them every other week moving forward.
The "Original 11" podcast was also available yesterday on goprincetontigers.com. The podcast talks about Princeton football, with a look back at the 51-9 win over Monmouth and the game coming up Friday night at Columbia (6, ESPNU).
The player interview this week is with John Lovett, the quarterback who has led the Tigers to 101 points in two games. The 50.5 average, by the way, is second in the FCS.
You can hear Lovett HERE. TigerBlog has never met Lovett, but you can tell by watching him that 1) he is a great leader, 2) he is a fearless player, 3) he plays with great intensity and 4) he is a team-first guy. All of this comes out during the podcast, in which he mentions his return from missing last year due to injury and then the start the team has had to far this season, through two weeks at least.
If you're a Princeton fan, you should definitely hear what Mollie has to say.
And the same is true for Lovett.
It's definitely worth a few more minutes.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
3-0 x Three
TigerBlog has been wondering something about dogs for a long time.
How does a dog know that other dogs are actually dogs, even if they look nothing alike, while also knowing that every other animal isn't a dog?
You've seen this a million times. There is one small dog and one giant dog, and as soon as they walked past each other, they flip out like they're long-lost brothers. Except how do they know that they're both dogs?
It would be like if a human walked past something that could be three or four times its size and never questioned what species it was.
And that same small dog could see a rabbit or squirrel or something much closer to its size and either give a bark or a bored look. It's nothing like seeing any other dog.
The unquestioned highlight of TigerBlog's interactions with dogs this weekend came at Class of 1952 Stadium Sunday, when he saw a dog growling and ready to attack. And who had gotten this pup so fired up?
It was the concrete Tiger on top of a column. Lucky for the concrete Tiger that the dog was on the concourse and not able to reach the top. Also, it was just as lucky for the dog that the Tiger wasn't real.
Anyway, the word TB would use to describe it would be "hilarious." The word TigerBlog would use to describe Princeton's athletic weekend? How about "successful?"
TB went through the football team's win over Monmouth yesterday, so he won't go back to that today, other to say it was Princeton 51, Monmouth 9 and that the Ivy League opener is coming up Friday night at Columbia. TB will have more on that later in the week.
In the meantime, there was the little matter of the three teams that opened their Ivy League seasons this past weekend.
All three are the defending league champion. All three were picked to repeat in the Ivy preseason poll. All three got off to a good start by winning their opener. And all three won by the same score - 3-0.
Let's start with women's volleyball.
Princeton opened the double round robin schedule with a sweep at Penn, one that saw the Tigers win by scores of 25-18, 25-19 and 28-26 after Penn had a set ball in the third.
There aren't too many sports that compete here about which TB knows less than he does about volleyball. What he does know is that Sabrina King has been a part of eight Ivy League championship teams here - three as a player, two as an assistant coach and three more as the head coach.
TigerBlog will add that to the list of things he wants to research. Has anyone else here ever won multiple Ivy titles as a player, assistant coach and head coach? Nobody is leaping to mind right away, though Greg Hughes is one away as the men's heavyweight head coach from matching that.
Then there was the field hockey team, which defeated Dartmouth 3-0 Saturday. TigerBlog originally wrote that the game was at Dartmouth, which is what he thought, so he apologizes to anyone who drove all the way up to New Hampshire for the game.
Princeton is 6-3 on the year after having played among the toughest non-league schedules in the country. For the rest of the way, there are six Ivy games plus games against BU (this Sunday at home) and defending NCAA champ UConn (winner of 32 straight, Oct. 7 at UConn).
Princeton would outshoot Dartmouth 22-3 in the 3-0 win. The goals came from three different players - Sophia Tornetta, MaryKate Neff and Jane Donio-Enscoe.
The 3-0 win in women's soccer over Yale saw one player account for all of the scoring. That would be Mimi Asom, who had her second career three-goal game.
Beyond that, Asom - who scored just before the half and then twice more in the second half - became the fourth Princeton women's soccer player to go along with two men's soccer players to reach the 40-goal mark for a career. Asom also has 88 career points, leaving her 12 away from becoming the third Princeton woman to reach 100 career points, something no men's player has done.
In other words, Asom is in very, very elite company in the history of Princeton soccer.
Junior Natalie Grossi posted her 20th career shutout, making her the third women's soccer player in program history to get to that number. Grossi now trails only Jordan Rettig (23) and Kelly O'Dell (22), though Grossi would be the first person to tell you that this is function of the defense in front of her as much as her.
Anyway, as opening Ivy League weekends go, this one was pretty good.
There is a long way to go for all of them as they pursue their goals of course, but 3-0 was an excellent start. All three times.
How does a dog know that other dogs are actually dogs, even if they look nothing alike, while also knowing that every other animal isn't a dog?
You've seen this a million times. There is one small dog and one giant dog, and as soon as they walked past each other, they flip out like they're long-lost brothers. Except how do they know that they're both dogs?
It would be like if a human walked past something that could be three or four times its size and never questioned what species it was.
And that same small dog could see a rabbit or squirrel or something much closer to its size and either give a bark or a bored look. It's nothing like seeing any other dog.
The unquestioned highlight of TigerBlog's interactions with dogs this weekend came at Class of 1952 Stadium Sunday, when he saw a dog growling and ready to attack. And who had gotten this pup so fired up?
It was the concrete Tiger on top of a column. Lucky for the concrete Tiger that the dog was on the concourse and not able to reach the top. Also, it was just as lucky for the dog that the Tiger wasn't real.
Anyway, the word TB would use to describe it would be "hilarious." The word TigerBlog would use to describe Princeton's athletic weekend? How about "successful?"
TB went through the football team's win over Monmouth yesterday, so he won't go back to that today, other to say it was Princeton 51, Monmouth 9 and that the Ivy League opener is coming up Friday night at Columbia. TB will have more on that later in the week.
In the meantime, there was the little matter of the three teams that opened their Ivy League seasons this past weekend.
All three are the defending league champion. All three were picked to repeat in the Ivy preseason poll. All three got off to a good start by winning their opener. And all three won by the same score - 3-0.
Let's start with women's volleyball.
Princeton opened the double round robin schedule with a sweep at Penn, one that saw the Tigers win by scores of 25-18, 25-19 and 28-26 after Penn had a set ball in the third.
There aren't too many sports that compete here about which TB knows less than he does about volleyball. What he does know is that Sabrina King has been a part of eight Ivy League championship teams here - three as a player, two as an assistant coach and three more as the head coach.
TigerBlog will add that to the list of things he wants to research. Has anyone else here ever won multiple Ivy titles as a player, assistant coach and head coach? Nobody is leaping to mind right away, though Greg Hughes is one away as the men's heavyweight head coach from matching that.
Then there was the field hockey team, which defeated Dartmouth 3-0 Saturday. TigerBlog originally wrote that the game was at Dartmouth, which is what he thought, so he apologizes to anyone who drove all the way up to New Hampshire for the game.
Princeton is 6-3 on the year after having played among the toughest non-league schedules in the country. For the rest of the way, there are six Ivy games plus games against BU (this Sunday at home) and defending NCAA champ UConn (winner of 32 straight, Oct. 7 at UConn).
Princeton would outshoot Dartmouth 22-3 in the 3-0 win. The goals came from three different players - Sophia Tornetta, MaryKate Neff and Jane Donio-Enscoe.
The 3-0 win in women's soccer over Yale saw one player account for all of the scoring. That would be Mimi Asom, who had her second career three-goal game.
Beyond that, Asom - who scored just before the half and then twice more in the second half - became the fourth Princeton women's soccer player to go along with two men's soccer players to reach the 40-goal mark for a career. Asom also has 88 career points, leaving her 12 away from becoming the third Princeton woman to reach 100 career points, something no men's player has done.
In other words, Asom is in very, very elite company in the history of Princeton soccer.
Junior Natalie Grossi posted her 20th career shutout, making her the third women's soccer player in program history to get to that number. Grossi now trails only Jordan Rettig (23) and Kelly O'Dell (22), though Grossi would be the first person to tell you that this is function of the defense in front of her as much as her.
Anyway, as opening Ivy League weekends go, this one was pretty good.
There is a long way to go for all of them as they pursue their goals of course, but 3-0 was an excellent start. All three times.
Monday, September 24, 2018
The Home Opener II
TigerBlog starts today by remembering his old friend John McAdams, who was the only full-time public address announcer TB has ever known.
John worked basically every night someplace, whether it was minor league baseball, Philadelphia pro teams or college sports. Most notably, he was the voice of Big Five basketball at the Palestra.
He spent several years as the PA announcer for Princeton football, as well as doing some other Princeton events, including the four home NCAA tournament games for the women's soccer team's 2004 run to the Final Four.
TigerBlog took over the PA announcer's role at Princeton Stadium after McAdams died in his sleep back in 2005, at the age of 64.
There will always be one word that TigerBlog would use to describe John McAdams, and it's a word that isn't really commonly used to describe people anymore. That word? John McAdams was a "gentleman."
TB thought about John this past Saturday, before he took to the mic before the Tigers' 2018 home opener. It's TigerBlog's 14th year as PA announcer now.
The game that played out in front of him was a wildly impressive one for the home team. Princeton defeated Monmouth 51-9 in the first meeting ever between the two, and coupled with the 50-7 win over Butler last week, Princeton has now outscored its two opponents by a combined 101-16.
It all led to this tweet:
Princeton ranks first or second in the FCS in scoring offense, team passing efficiency, fewest penalties, rushing offense and fewest turnovers. In fact, Princeton has yet to turn the ball over at all in two games.
If you want to talk about individuals, how would you even begin to pick the top five players on the team through two games. There are about 15 you could legitimately consider for that list, maybe more.
The game Saturday night started out with a 71-yard Monmouth run that led to a field goal and a 3-0 Hawks lead. The Hawks, by the way, reached the NCAA playoffs last year.
If you were briefly distracted after the field goal, it was 14-3 Tigers in what seemed like a blink. If you were distracted a little longer, it got to 30-9 by halftime.
John Lovett was again brilliant, with five touchdown passes on a 21 for 27, 332 yard night. He also ran for 71 yards and another TD.
Which wide receiver had a better night? Stephen Carlson - you can read all about him HERE - caught 11 passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns, while Jesper Horsted caught eight for 150 yards and three touchdowns (breaking the school record for career receiving touchdowns, by the way, with 20, one better than Derek Graham).
When was the last time Princeton had two 150-yard receivers in one game?
There were many others on both sides of the ball who played really well. It's like TB said; there are 15 players who could have been in the top five. Forget just offensive and defensive stats. There's also the matter of the offensive line, which allowed exactly zero sacks and enabled Princeton to run for 283 yards.
So where do the Tigers stand now, two weeks into the season?
Well, they're confident, and they're playing really well. Their offense at times looks unstoppable, led by Lovett, who is smart, strong, experienced and showing no effects of his year off.
On the other hand, there are eight Ivy League teams, and five of them are 2-0.
After this weekend, at least two, and no more than three, will be 3-0. Penn and Dartmouth, two of the 2-0 teams, meet in Hanover Saturday.
This will be after Princeton and Columbia, also both 2-0, play Friday night at 6 on ESPNU in New York City. If you recall a year ago, Princeton was 2-0 as well before Columbia defeated the Tigers 28-24 on Powers Field.
There figures to be a lot more known about the Ivy League after the two games next weekend, at least the early part of the Ivy League race. The game at Columbia should be a good one.
And a big one. At least a big one for September.
John worked basically every night someplace, whether it was minor league baseball, Philadelphia pro teams or college sports. Most notably, he was the voice of Big Five basketball at the Palestra.
He spent several years as the PA announcer for Princeton football, as well as doing some other Princeton events, including the four home NCAA tournament games for the women's soccer team's 2004 run to the Final Four.
TigerBlog took over the PA announcer's role at Princeton Stadium after McAdams died in his sleep back in 2005, at the age of 64.
There will always be one word that TigerBlog would use to describe John McAdams, and it's a word that isn't really commonly used to describe people anymore. That word? John McAdams was a "gentleman."
TB thought about John this past Saturday, before he took to the mic before the Tigers' 2018 home opener. It's TigerBlog's 14th year as PA announcer now.
The game that played out in front of him was a wildly impressive one for the home team. Princeton defeated Monmouth 51-9 in the first meeting ever between the two, and coupled with the 50-7 win over Butler last week, Princeton has now outscored its two opponents by a combined 101-16.
It all led to this tweet:
Princeton has looked great through two weeks. It also hasn't been any sort of one-man, or even one-unit, show.This is the 1st time Princeton has opened a season w/ back-to-back 50-point games since ’86 … 1886. Tigers took it to Stevens Institute in back-to-back weeks; sorry, highlights of those wins aren’t available.— Princeton Football (@PUTigerFootball) September 22, 2018
Princeton ranks first or second in the FCS in scoring offense, team passing efficiency, fewest penalties, rushing offense and fewest turnovers. In fact, Princeton has yet to turn the ball over at all in two games.
If you want to talk about individuals, how would you even begin to pick the top five players on the team through two games. There are about 15 you could legitimately consider for that list, maybe more.
The game Saturday night started out with a 71-yard Monmouth run that led to a field goal and a 3-0 Hawks lead. The Hawks, by the way, reached the NCAA playoffs last year.
If you were briefly distracted after the field goal, it was 14-3 Tigers in what seemed like a blink. If you were distracted a little longer, it got to 30-9 by halftime.
John Lovett was again brilliant, with five touchdown passes on a 21 for 27, 332 yard night. He also ran for 71 yards and another TD.
Which wide receiver had a better night? Stephen Carlson - you can read all about him HERE - caught 11 passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns, while Jesper Horsted caught eight for 150 yards and three touchdowns (breaking the school record for career receiving touchdowns, by the way, with 20, one better than Derek Graham).
When was the last time Princeton had two 150-yard receivers in one game?
There were many others on both sides of the ball who played really well. It's like TB said; there are 15 players who could have been in the top five. Forget just offensive and defensive stats. There's also the matter of the offensive line, which allowed exactly zero sacks and enabled Princeton to run for 283 yards.
So where do the Tigers stand now, two weeks into the season?
Well, they're confident, and they're playing really well. Their offense at times looks unstoppable, led by Lovett, who is smart, strong, experienced and showing no effects of his year off.
On the other hand, there are eight Ivy League teams, and five of them are 2-0.
After this weekend, at least two, and no more than three, will be 3-0. Penn and Dartmouth, two of the 2-0 teams, meet in Hanover Saturday.
This will be after Princeton and Columbia, also both 2-0, play Friday night at 6 on ESPNU in New York City. If you recall a year ago, Princeton was 2-0 as well before Columbia defeated the Tigers 28-24 on Powers Field.
There figures to be a lot more known about the Ivy League after the two games next weekend, at least the early part of the Ivy League race. The game at Columbia should be a good one.
And a big one. At least a big one for September.
Friday, September 21, 2018
The Home Opener
Back when TigerBlog was in the newspaper business, he started out covering high schools for six years before moving up to colleges for five.
It was during that time that he first began to cover Princeton sports, as an aside.
The first events he ever covered in Jadwin Gym, though, had nothing to do with the Tigers. He's not sure what order they were in, but he's pretty sure they were 1) the New Jersey state wrestling championships, 2) two Princeton High School state tournament tennis matches and 3) a tennis seniors exhibition series featuring some of the greatest players ever.
After a press conference in Jadwin for the senior tennis event, TigerBlog found himself talking to two of the players, who had no way to get back to their hotel and were going to call a cab. Instead, TB offered to give them a ride, which is how he ended up having Cliff Drysdale in the front seat of his Volkswagen Rabbit and Rod Laver in the back seat.
They were nice guys.
His other story of giving someone a ride isn't quite as good. When he started covering colleges, he also covered a little bit of the Giants and Jets in preseason.
Remember Ken O'Brien, the Jets' QB? TigerBlog asked him to talk one day and he said he was eating lunch and would meet him afterwards by a spot in the parking lot, something that TB doubted would actually happen. So what happened? O'Brien was there, right when he said he'd be, and he gave TB all the time he wanted.
One day, TB was writing a story on one of the Giants rookies and he asked George Young, then the GM, for an interview. Young said sure, but could TB give him a ride from the field back to where his own car was parked, a little ways away.
TigerBlog said sure, and Young jumped in and chatted away.
TB thought about that when he read the story earlier this week about why Young said he would never have hired Bill Belichick as the head coach of the Giants. If you missed the story, Young essentially referred to Belichick as a poorly dressed lacrosse guy.
That's funny stuff.
That's back when TigerBlog rooted for the Giants. He's stopped doing that.
Speaking of lacrosse guys, the Princeton men's lacrosse team opened its season a year ago against Monmouth in the first meeting ever between the two. That game went two OTs before Princeton won 9-8.
Coming up tomorrow will be the first meeting ever between Princeton and Monmouth in football. Maybe this one will go two OTs also?
Princeton is 1-0 after its convincing 50-7 win at Butler last Saturday. Monmouth lost its opener to FBS opponent Eastern Michigan before coming back with wins over Hampton and Lafayette, and the Hawks were an NCAA playoff qualifier last year.
Princeton's first-ever opponent was of course a team from New Jersey. That was Rutgers, back in 1869, in the first football game ever played.
This time, it's Princeton first game against a New Jersey opponent since the Tigers last played Rutgers, back in 1980. Monmouth didn't even have a team yet back then.
This is actually Year No. 26 for Monmouth football, as opposed to 149 for Princeton football. The Hawks have had one coach for their entire existence, Kevin Callahan, who has a record of 146-119.
TigerBlog is almost certain that Callahan, by the way, is former Princeton men's basketball coach Bill Carmody's brother-in-law. He knows for a fact that Callahan's son Kevin is an assistant coach at Columbia, whom Princeton will play in its Ivy opener a week from tonight in New York City.
Monmouth, by the way, is not on next year's schedule, which features non-league games against Butler (home), Bucknell (away) and Lafayette (home).
Through three games, Monmouth has thrown it 111 times and run it 103. The Hawks have outrushed their opponents nearly two-to-one, averaging 203.7 and allowing 103. It's been fairly even in the air, with 859 yards gained and 862 allowed.
Princeton, obviously, sprinted past Butler, scoring just 26 seconds into the game on a John Lovett to Jesper Horsted pass and then adding on another Horsted TD, two rushing TDs from Lovett and two rushing TDs from Charlie Volker, among other things.
It's Community and Staff Day at Princeton, including a youth clinic at Weaver Track and Field Stadium. Kickoff for the game is at 4:30.
All of this, by the way, makes TB wonder when the last time it was that the Tigers opened the season with consecutive games against teams they had never played before. He'll have to look that one up.
It was during that time that he first began to cover Princeton sports, as an aside.
The first events he ever covered in Jadwin Gym, though, had nothing to do with the Tigers. He's not sure what order they were in, but he's pretty sure they were 1) the New Jersey state wrestling championships, 2) two Princeton High School state tournament tennis matches and 3) a tennis seniors exhibition series featuring some of the greatest players ever.
After a press conference in Jadwin for the senior tennis event, TigerBlog found himself talking to two of the players, who had no way to get back to their hotel and were going to call a cab. Instead, TB offered to give them a ride, which is how he ended up having Cliff Drysdale in the front seat of his Volkswagen Rabbit and Rod Laver in the back seat.
They were nice guys.
His other story of giving someone a ride isn't quite as good. When he started covering colleges, he also covered a little bit of the Giants and Jets in preseason.
Remember Ken O'Brien, the Jets' QB? TigerBlog asked him to talk one day and he said he was eating lunch and would meet him afterwards by a spot in the parking lot, something that TB doubted would actually happen. So what happened? O'Brien was there, right when he said he'd be, and he gave TB all the time he wanted.
One day, TB was writing a story on one of the Giants rookies and he asked George Young, then the GM, for an interview. Young said sure, but could TB give him a ride from the field back to where his own car was parked, a little ways away.
TigerBlog said sure, and Young jumped in and chatted away.
TB thought about that when he read the story earlier this week about why Young said he would never have hired Bill Belichick as the head coach of the Giants. If you missed the story, Young essentially referred to Belichick as a poorly dressed lacrosse guy.
That's funny stuff.
That's back when TigerBlog rooted for the Giants. He's stopped doing that.
Speaking of lacrosse guys, the Princeton men's lacrosse team opened its season a year ago against Monmouth in the first meeting ever between the two. That game went two OTs before Princeton won 9-8.
Coming up tomorrow will be the first meeting ever between Princeton and Monmouth in football. Maybe this one will go two OTs also?
Princeton is 1-0 after its convincing 50-7 win at Butler last Saturday. Monmouth lost its opener to FBS opponent Eastern Michigan before coming back with wins over Hampton and Lafayette, and the Hawks were an NCAA playoff qualifier last year.
Princeton's first-ever opponent was of course a team from New Jersey. That was Rutgers, back in 1869, in the first football game ever played.
This time, it's Princeton first game against a New Jersey opponent since the Tigers last played Rutgers, back in 1980. Monmouth didn't even have a team yet back then.
This is actually Year No. 26 for Monmouth football, as opposed to 149 for Princeton football. The Hawks have had one coach for their entire existence, Kevin Callahan, who has a record of 146-119.
TigerBlog is almost certain that Callahan, by the way, is former Princeton men's basketball coach Bill Carmody's brother-in-law. He knows for a fact that Callahan's son Kevin is an assistant coach at Columbia, whom Princeton will play in its Ivy opener a week from tonight in New York City.
Monmouth, by the way, is not on next year's schedule, which features non-league games against Butler (home), Bucknell (away) and Lafayette (home).
Through three games, Monmouth has thrown it 111 times and run it 103. The Hawks have outrushed their opponents nearly two-to-one, averaging 203.7 and allowing 103. It's been fairly even in the air, with 859 yards gained and 862 allowed.
Princeton, obviously, sprinted past Butler, scoring just 26 seconds into the game on a John Lovett to Jesper Horsted pass and then adding on another Horsted TD, two rushing TDs from Lovett and two rushing TDs from Charlie Volker, among other things.
It's Community and Staff Day at Princeton, including a youth clinic at Weaver Track and Field Stadium. Kickoff for the game is at 4:30.
All of this, by the way, makes TB wonder when the last time it was that the Tigers opened the season with consecutive games against teams they had never played before. He'll have to look that one up.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Ivy Champs
TigerBlog isn't sure exactly when summer officially ends, though he knows it's pretty soon.
A quick search seems to suggest that the first day of autumn is actually Sunday, the 23rd. TigerBlog has never heard that before.
The 23rd? He thought it was either the 20th or 21st, right?
The seasons have changed considerably around here, as winter on one end and summer on the other have closed in on spring, which hardly exists anymore, at least not in the way it used to, with sunny, 60-degree days the norm.
The summer of 2018 in this area was very hot and very humid, with a lot of thunderstorms and rain mixed in. It saved pretty much its worst for the end, since September has been one rainy day after another.
Whether it's today, tomorrow or Sunday, fall will be here soon. The 10-day Princeton forecast indicates that it's possible that that last of the 80-degree days are gone for the year, and it should be fairly pleasant out for the near future.
This is good news for the fall teams, who will be heading into Ivy League games relatively shortly. In fact, the weather won't matter for the first one, which is women's volleyball at Penn tomorrow night. Princeton, by the way, has won three straight Ivy women's volleyball titles.
There are two other defending Ivy champs who open their league schedules Saturday, both on the road. The field hockey team will play at Dartmouth, while the women's soccer team is at Yale.
There are 37 Princeton teams, of whom 33 compete for Ivy titles. The four who don't are women's lightweight rowing, men's volleyball and men's and women's water polo.
Princeton has been the dominant Ivy League athletic program by any historical metric. Princeton has won 483 Ivy League championships all-time, which is 65 more than second-place Harvard (418). From there, it goes to third-place Cornell with 232, which is less than half as many as Princeton.
In the last four years - since Mollie Marcoux Samaan became the Ford Family Director of Athletics - Princeton has won 47 Ivy titles to 38 for Harvard and then nobody else with more than 18.
Princeton and Harvard are the only two schools in the league to have reached double figures in Ivy titles in an academic year, something that Princeton has done 25 times and Harvard has done 10 times. They're also the only two league schools who have never gone an entire academic year without at least one Ivy title.
The first year of official Ivy League competition was 1956-57, a year in which Yale won seven league titles to Princeton's four. After 10 years, Princeton had 32 Ivy titles, behind both Harvard (46) and Yale (35).
Princeton finally caught Yale in the 1970-71 academic year. As for Harvard, that would take longer.
In fact, at one point, Harvard had a 43-title lead on Princeton. It actually wasn't until the 1990s that Princeton actually took the lead.
In the last 25 years, Princeton has a 278-187 lead over the Crimson. That's how Princeton has built this huge lead.
One piece of information that TigerBlog hasn't put together is the breakdown of Ivy titles by gender, and that's something he'll get to work on at some point. Even without the actual numbers, though, it's obvious that Princeton's women's teams have to have an overwhelming advantage historically.
All of this brings us to the present.
What is the significance of Princeton's historic dominance? It's great, but it doesn't ensure anything moving forward. The 2017-18 academic year was also a league first in that it was the first time in history that five schools won at least five Ivy titles, led by Princeton's 11.
That fact is not lost on anyone at Princeton. If anything, it's gotten Princeton to rededicate its efforts to maintaining and advancing the level of success it's enjoyed throughout the years.
By the time the end of the spring rolls around, there will be 33 teams - at a minimum - who can call themselves Ivy League champions. There are always a few ties along the way, so the actual number is more than 33.
Some of those championships take a long time to win, like in double round-robin sports. Others take a weekend (track and field, swimming and diving, rowing) or even less than a half-hour (cross country).
Regardless, they're all special. And nobody ever takes any of them for granted, no matter how much of a prohibitive favorite a team might have been heading into its season.
And nobody ever forgets they were part of one.
You can ask any Princeton athlete who has ever had the experience. They'll tell you details, big games, big moments - and what it felt like when the goal had been achieved.
That's 483 Ivy League championship teams as of right now.
The quest for more begins this weekend.
A quick search seems to suggest that the first day of autumn is actually Sunday, the 23rd. TigerBlog has never heard that before.
The 23rd? He thought it was either the 20th or 21st, right?
The seasons have changed considerably around here, as winter on one end and summer on the other have closed in on spring, which hardly exists anymore, at least not in the way it used to, with sunny, 60-degree days the norm.
The summer of 2018 in this area was very hot and very humid, with a lot of thunderstorms and rain mixed in. It saved pretty much its worst for the end, since September has been one rainy day after another.
Whether it's today, tomorrow or Sunday, fall will be here soon. The 10-day Princeton forecast indicates that it's possible that that last of the 80-degree days are gone for the year, and it should be fairly pleasant out for the near future.
This is good news for the fall teams, who will be heading into Ivy League games relatively shortly. In fact, the weather won't matter for the first one, which is women's volleyball at Penn tomorrow night. Princeton, by the way, has won three straight Ivy women's volleyball titles.
There are two other defending Ivy champs who open their league schedules Saturday, both on the road. The field hockey team will play at Dartmouth, while the women's soccer team is at Yale.
There are 37 Princeton teams, of whom 33 compete for Ivy titles. The four who don't are women's lightweight rowing, men's volleyball and men's and women's water polo.
Princeton has been the dominant Ivy League athletic program by any historical metric. Princeton has won 483 Ivy League championships all-time, which is 65 more than second-place Harvard (418). From there, it goes to third-place Cornell with 232, which is less than half as many as Princeton.
In the last four years - since Mollie Marcoux Samaan became the Ford Family Director of Athletics - Princeton has won 47 Ivy titles to 38 for Harvard and then nobody else with more than 18.
Princeton and Harvard are the only two schools in the league to have reached double figures in Ivy titles in an academic year, something that Princeton has done 25 times and Harvard has done 10 times. They're also the only two league schools who have never gone an entire academic year without at least one Ivy title.
The first year of official Ivy League competition was 1956-57, a year in which Yale won seven league titles to Princeton's four. After 10 years, Princeton had 32 Ivy titles, behind both Harvard (46) and Yale (35).
Princeton finally caught Yale in the 1970-71 academic year. As for Harvard, that would take longer.
In fact, at one point, Harvard had a 43-title lead on Princeton. It actually wasn't until the 1990s that Princeton actually took the lead.
In the last 25 years, Princeton has a 278-187 lead over the Crimson. That's how Princeton has built this huge lead.
One piece of information that TigerBlog hasn't put together is the breakdown of Ivy titles by gender, and that's something he'll get to work on at some point. Even without the actual numbers, though, it's obvious that Princeton's women's teams have to have an overwhelming advantage historically.
All of this brings us to the present.
What is the significance of Princeton's historic dominance? It's great, but it doesn't ensure anything moving forward. The 2017-18 academic year was also a league first in that it was the first time in history that five schools won at least five Ivy titles, led by Princeton's 11.
That fact is not lost on anyone at Princeton. If anything, it's gotten Princeton to rededicate its efforts to maintaining and advancing the level of success it's enjoyed throughout the years.
By the time the end of the spring rolls around, there will be 33 teams - at a minimum - who can call themselves Ivy League champions. There are always a few ties along the way, so the actual number is more than 33.
Some of those championships take a long time to win, like in double round-robin sports. Others take a weekend (track and field, swimming and diving, rowing) or even less than a half-hour (cross country).
Regardless, they're all special. And nobody ever takes any of them for granted, no matter how much of a prohibitive favorite a team might have been heading into its season.
And nobody ever forgets they were part of one.
You can ask any Princeton athlete who has ever had the experience. They'll tell you details, big games, big moments - and what it felt like when the goal had been achieved.
That's 483 Ivy League championship teams as of right now.
The quest for more begins this weekend.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Good Game
TigerBlog was walking down the stairs back to E level yesterday in the middle of the day when all of the sudden he felt like he was on a postgame handshake line.
You know. It's one of those where the players on one team say "good game, good game, good game, good game" as they high-five the members of the other team, who counter with "good game, good game, good game, good game."
This almost always applies regardless of how the good the game actually was, by the way.
As for TigerBlog yesterday, it wasn't so much "good game, good game, good game, good game" as it was "excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me."
TB was walking down as the Maryland field hockey team was walking up. As they came up the stairs, he paused on the landing in between D level and E level, to a chorus of "excuse me" after "excuse me" as they all walked by pleasantly.
This happened presumably after the Terps went through a walk-through in the pit prior to last night's game against Princeton. At least that's what TB surmised.
Apparently, it rained pretty heavily yesterday during the day. TigerBlog didn't see a drop of it, since his office has no windows. By the time he went upstairs later, it was nice out.
As for the game, well, this one really was a good game. Princeton would end up falling 5-4 in the second overtime, after the Terps tied it with just 15 seconds left in regulation.
Even though No. 5 Princeton didn't get the outcome it would have hoped for, this was definitely a game that screamed what it was - a matchup of two of the top five teams in the country. Princeton has bitten off a really tough schedule, as always, and the Tigers have come through it with some huge wins, as well as one-goal losses to No. 1 North Carolina and now No. 3 Maryland.
For their part, Maryland stayed unbeaten, by the slimmest of margins.
The Princeton field hockey 11 lost to Maryland last night. The Princeton football 11, or more than 11 but you get the point, host Monmouth Saturday in the home opener. Kickoff is at 4:30.
When TB finally made it back to the office after all of the "excuse mes" from the Maryland field hockey players and staff, he listened to the "Original 11" podcast, which his colleague Craig Sachson does each week during football season. The current episode can be heard HERE.
There are actually two football podcasts available each week, with the "Original 11" and "The Bob Surace Show." If you live in the Princeton area and want to go to the head coach's show, you can see it at the Alchemist & Barrister in town, each Thursday at 7.
The "Original 11" features a discussion with Sachson and Princeton radio play-by-play man Cody Chrusciel to start out and then an interview with a player. This week, that player is offensive tackle Reily Radosevich, a second-team All-Ivy League selection a year ago.
If you're a Princeton football fan, it's certainly worth your 15 minutes to listen. The title refers, of course, to Princeton's place of having played in the first-ever football game, against Rutgers, back in 1869.
It was Sachson who introduced podcasting to Princeton Athletics a few years ago. Now the lineup has grown to include various weekly episodes during each season, and coming next week will be the second edition of "A Few Minutes With Mollie" - featuring Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan.
TigerBlog would like to continue to expand the podcast offerings, since they have been so successful. Certainly the numbers suggest that, at the least.
As for the football team, the game against Monmouth is the first of six home games. Princeton opens its Ivy season next Friday at Columbia on ESPNU, and then after that, there are only two more away games for the remainder of the season.
Those, by the way, are at Harvard and at Yale.
First, though, is Monmouth, who is 2-1 with two straight wins, over Hampton and Lafayette. Monmouth reached the NCAA playoffs last year.
In short, this should be a good game.
You know. It's one of those where the players on one team say "good game, good game, good game, good game" as they high-five the members of the other team, who counter with "good game, good game, good game, good game."
This almost always applies regardless of how the good the game actually was, by the way.
As for TigerBlog yesterday, it wasn't so much "good game, good game, good game, good game" as it was "excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me."
TB was walking down as the Maryland field hockey team was walking up. As they came up the stairs, he paused on the landing in between D level and E level, to a chorus of "excuse me" after "excuse me" as they all walked by pleasantly.
This happened presumably after the Terps went through a walk-through in the pit prior to last night's game against Princeton. At least that's what TB surmised.
Apparently, it rained pretty heavily yesterday during the day. TigerBlog didn't see a drop of it, since his office has no windows. By the time he went upstairs later, it was nice out.
As for the game, well, this one really was a good game. Princeton would end up falling 5-4 in the second overtime, after the Terps tied it with just 15 seconds left in regulation.
Even though No. 5 Princeton didn't get the outcome it would have hoped for, this was definitely a game that screamed what it was - a matchup of two of the top five teams in the country. Princeton has bitten off a really tough schedule, as always, and the Tigers have come through it with some huge wins, as well as one-goal losses to No. 1 North Carolina and now No. 3 Maryland.
For their part, Maryland stayed unbeaten, by the slimmest of margins.
The Princeton field hockey 11 lost to Maryland last night. The Princeton football 11, or more than 11 but you get the point, host Monmouth Saturday in the home opener. Kickoff is at 4:30.
When TB finally made it back to the office after all of the "excuse mes" from the Maryland field hockey players and staff, he listened to the "Original 11" podcast, which his colleague Craig Sachson does each week during football season. The current episode can be heard HERE.
There are actually two football podcasts available each week, with the "Original 11" and "The Bob Surace Show." If you live in the Princeton area and want to go to the head coach's show, you can see it at the Alchemist & Barrister in town, each Thursday at 7.
The "Original 11" features a discussion with Sachson and Princeton radio play-by-play man Cody Chrusciel to start out and then an interview with a player. This week, that player is offensive tackle Reily Radosevich, a second-team All-Ivy League selection a year ago.
If you're a Princeton football fan, it's certainly worth your 15 minutes to listen. The title refers, of course, to Princeton's place of having played in the first-ever football game, against Rutgers, back in 1869.
It was Sachson who introduced podcasting to Princeton Athletics a few years ago. Now the lineup has grown to include various weekly episodes during each season, and coming next week will be the second edition of "A Few Minutes With Mollie" - featuring Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan.
TigerBlog would like to continue to expand the podcast offerings, since they have been so successful. Certainly the numbers suggest that, at the least.
As for the football team, the game against Monmouth is the first of six home games. Princeton opens its Ivy season next Friday at Columbia on ESPNU, and then after that, there are only two more away games for the remainder of the season.
Those, by the way, are at Harvard and at Yale.
First, though, is Monmouth, who is 2-1 with two straight wins, over Hampton and Lafayette. Monmouth reached the NCAA playoffs last year.
In short, this should be a good game.
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Top 10, Again
Oh, one more thing from the Princeton-Butler football game.
You know who else was staying in the same hotel as the Tigers in Indianapolis? Taylor Swift. How about that.
TigerBlog is guessing that Swift didn't go down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast or anything.
What do you do when you see someone famous? Ask for an autograph or to take a picture? Or just ignore them?
TigerBlog's old friend Mark Eckel spent more than 30 years writing for the Trenton Times. No, Mark isn't the celebrity in this story by the way.
He spent a lot of time covering Princeton stuff, but his main beat was the Philadelphia Eagles. Way back when the newspaper was at its most vibrant, he covered every Super Bowl, and he told TB the story of one time when he was on the media bus with none other than O.J. Simpson. This of course was well before the events of 1994.
Mark said that people kept coming up to Simpson and telling him he was great in this game or great in that game. Mark? He told him he was great in "Capricorn One."
If you don't get the reference, read THIS.
For his part, when TigerBlog meets someone who is relatively famous, he usually asks them for their name. This really, really bothers famous people, who always give a look that says, "But don't you know who I am? How can you not know my name."
Ah, TB cracks himself up sometimes.
You know who is achieving some fame these days? The Princeton field hockey team.
The Tigers have now done what might be a first. They have made two appearances on SportsCenter's top 10 plays of the day. That's pretty impressive, no?
In fact, field hockey on the countdown at all is a rarity. To have one team now have done it twice in the same season is even rarer. TigerBlog wonders if that's happened before, or how many times field hockey has been on SportsCenter at all this year. A lot? Not a lot?
The main point, of course, is that both Princeton goals that were featured were spectacular.
The first time was with MaryKate Neff's bat-the-ball-up, bat-it-in-the-goal in the win over Duke 10 days ago. Then there was the game against Monmouth this past Friday.
This time it was Emma Street's turn, with her assist to Sophia Tornetta:
Princeton won that game 4-1 Friday and then came back Sunday to defeat Delaware 4-2. The Blue Hens were ranked 13th, and they also are two years removed from winning the NCAA championship.
Princeton is off to a 5-2 start, which is even more impressive considering that six of the seven games have come against ranked teams. Princeton owns wins over Top 10 teams Duke and Penn State, to go along with the wins over Wake Forest and Delaware.
The challenges continue for the Tigers, who host Maryland tonight on Bedford Field (game starts at 6). Princeton is currently ranked fifth, while the Terps are ranked third.
Princeton and Maryland have met every year since 1997. The Terps lead the series 22-9-1, but one of the Tiger wins came a year ago, 2-1 in College Park.
Maryland has outscored its opponents 34-11 en route to an 8-0 start. Linnea Gonzalez and Nike Lorenz have combined for 15 of those goals, meaning they've outscored the Terps opponents by themselves.
The teams have two common opponents - Duke and Delaware. Maryland also has a 3-1 win over Harvard, who is currently 5-1.
The game against Maryland is the last before the start of the Ivy season, which begins against Dartmouth at home Saturday at noon and then continues at Yale a week from Friday.
Princeton has reached the NCAA Final Four and quarterfinals in Carla Tagliente's first two years as head coach. This team has already shown that it is capable of making another such run.
And of coming up with the spectacular finish.
Just ask the folks at the SportsCenter assignment desk.
You know who else was staying in the same hotel as the Tigers in Indianapolis? Taylor Swift. How about that.
TigerBlog is guessing that Swift didn't go down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast or anything.
What do you do when you see someone famous? Ask for an autograph or to take a picture? Or just ignore them?
TigerBlog's old friend Mark Eckel spent more than 30 years writing for the Trenton Times. No, Mark isn't the celebrity in this story by the way.
He spent a lot of time covering Princeton stuff, but his main beat was the Philadelphia Eagles. Way back when the newspaper was at its most vibrant, he covered every Super Bowl, and he told TB the story of one time when he was on the media bus with none other than O.J. Simpson. This of course was well before the events of 1994.
Mark said that people kept coming up to Simpson and telling him he was great in this game or great in that game. Mark? He told him he was great in "Capricorn One."
If you don't get the reference, read THIS.
For his part, when TigerBlog meets someone who is relatively famous, he usually asks them for their name. This really, really bothers famous people, who always give a look that says, "But don't you know who I am? How can you not know my name."
Ah, TB cracks himself up sometimes.
You know who is achieving some fame these days? The Princeton field hockey team.
The Tigers have now done what might be a first. They have made two appearances on SportsCenter's top 10 plays of the day. That's pretty impressive, no?
In fact, field hockey on the countdown at all is a rarity. To have one team now have done it twice in the same season is even rarer. TigerBlog wonders if that's happened before, or how many times field hockey has been on SportsCenter at all this year. A lot? Not a lot?
The main point, of course, is that both Princeton goals that were featured were spectacular.
The first time was with MaryKate Neff's bat-the-ball-up, bat-it-in-the-goal in the win over Duke 10 days ago. Then there was the game against Monmouth this past Friday.
This time it was Emma Street's turn, with her assist to Sophia Tornetta:
TigerBlog was at the game and didn't even notice that the pass was something of a no-look, backwards, between the legs feed. It's even more impressive when you look at the slow motion version, and it didn't hurt that Tornetta's goal was a backhanded rocket.Hope you caught @Sportscenter last night ... Another week with an #SCTop10 play! #TigerUp pic.twitter.com/Yq1bCbNYSv— Princeton FH (@TigerFH) September 15, 2018
Princeton won that game 4-1 Friday and then came back Sunday to defeat Delaware 4-2. The Blue Hens were ranked 13th, and they also are two years removed from winning the NCAA championship.
Princeton is off to a 5-2 start, which is even more impressive considering that six of the seven games have come against ranked teams. Princeton owns wins over Top 10 teams Duke and Penn State, to go along with the wins over Wake Forest and Delaware.
The challenges continue for the Tigers, who host Maryland tonight on Bedford Field (game starts at 6). Princeton is currently ranked fifth, while the Terps are ranked third.
Princeton and Maryland have met every year since 1997. The Terps lead the series 22-9-1, but one of the Tiger wins came a year ago, 2-1 in College Park.
Maryland has outscored its opponents 34-11 en route to an 8-0 start. Linnea Gonzalez and Nike Lorenz have combined for 15 of those goals, meaning they've outscored the Terps opponents by themselves.
The teams have two common opponents - Duke and Delaware. Maryland also has a 3-1 win over Harvard, who is currently 5-1.
The game against Maryland is the last before the start of the Ivy season, which begins against Dartmouth at home Saturday at noon and then continues at Yale a week from Friday.
Princeton has reached the NCAA Final Four and quarterfinals in Carla Tagliente's first two years as head coach. This team has already shown that it is capable of making another such run.
And of coming up with the spectacular finish.
Just ask the folks at the SportsCenter assignment desk.
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