Profiles

It’s the bottom of the ninth inning, with two outs and the bases loaded. The baseball team is playing on the road against Louisiana State University, the No. 7 team in the country. After falling behind 8-1, LSU put up a six-run eighth inning to reduce Princeton’s lead to one. Many closers thrive on this kind of high-pressure situation. But the man on the mound, senior pitcher David Palms, has never recorded a save in his Princeton college career.

Senior attackman Chris McBride wants to make the big play. He wants to attack the net and take the shot. And throughout his Princeton career, he’s been pretty successful at doing so. In his sophomore season, he tallied 18 goals for the men’s lacrosse team; in his junior season, he notched 16.

In high school, senior Ashley Higginson wanted to become a three-season athlete, having already started soccer and basketball when she was younger. Fortunately for Tiger sports fans, she chose to begin track as opposed to softball.

Long before junior guard Doug Davis earned the top spot on SportsCenter’s Top 10 with his buzzer-beating jump shot, a Princeton alumnus had been playing a crucial role behind the scenes in shaping American basketball into what it is today. After leading the Tigers to two Ivy League Championships and NCAA Tournament appearances, Steve Mills ’81 took his talents to the NBA and helped select the 1992 Dream Team and create the WNBA.

In academics and in athletics, success sometimes comes in pairs. Seniors David Letourneau and Taylor Fedun of the men’s squash and hockey teams, respectively, are both captains of their squads and are working together on their senior theses in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department. Both have plans to go professional in their respective sports and, on top of that, both are international students hailing from the Canadian province of Alberta.