In ‘Quick Hits,’ we give our immediate thoughts after the biggest games on campus. This weekend: The baseball team's first Ivy League games and the men’s volleyball team’s 3-2 loss to No. 8 Penn State.
Which Ivy League basketball gym is the toughest to play in?The answer, of course, depends on how you ask the question. The simple response, of course, is that Princeton and Penn are the toughest places for a visiting team to win. Jadwin Gymnasium and The Palestra are notoriously tough for visiting teams; the Quakers and Tigers have the best point differential and winning percentage at home over the past decade, an advantage that was certainly even stronger in the more distant past, before the rise of teams like Cornell and Harvard.
It is an age-old question: Which is a better professional sports town, New York or Boston? This question is not just a matter for scholarly debate. It is a ritualistic argument that allows fans to demonstrate their faith. Much has been said about the relative performances of these two cities’ sports teams in the 20th century. As a native Bostonian, I will not offer comment other than to say that in between the Celtics’ 16 championship runs, a lot of awful things happened in the past century.
Before Ivy League play starts this weekend, we rank the Ancient Eight teams.
Spring break tends to be a time for students to relax and not have much to worry about. However, there are generally two exceptions to this rule. The first are seniors working on finishing their theses as their deadline approaches, and the second are the many athletes involved in spring sports.
Future Princeton wrestling teams will one day look back on 2011-12 as the season when the program began its shift away from mediocrity and toward greatness. But this team won’t forget the fun it had along the way, such as when junior Zach Bintliff wrapped himself in bubble wrap before being pounded by his teammates or when junior captain Garrett Frey made a helpful dictionary for incoming freshmen to teach them the team’s many inside jokes and goofy anagrams.
Freshman first baseman Libby Crowe has just two official at-bats, but that says nothing of her influence on the softball team. Crowe has become the go-to defensive presence along the first-base line and, despite appearing in just eight games, has the third-most putouts on the team, including a team-high eight against St. Mary’s last weekend. With the team set to open Ivy League play with home doubleheaders against Dartmouth and Harvard, the ‘Prince’ sat down with Crowe for her wit, curly locks and position as the “mama” of the freshman family.
Our full conversation with senior guard Doug Davis of the men's basketball team, discussing memories of his four-year career at Princeton and his plans for the future.
For most members of the Class of 2014, the first time they saw senior guard Doug Davis, he was not sneaking a backdoor pass along the baseline to one of Princeton’s big men or pulling up for a three-pointer on a fast break. Instead, the class first met Davis as one of the speakers at a diversity panel during freshman week in fall 2010. For Davis, speaking in front of a group of freshmen presented a different obstacle from an opposing player guarding him along the perimeter.
After sitting down with senior guard Doug Davis to reflect on his Princeton career, we count down his top five games with the Tigers:
After a desperately needed win over the Juniata Eagles (22-9) on Saturday, the men’s volleyball team heads into the biggest weekend of its season, when its playoff chances will be decided. While the game had no effect on its standing in the EIVA, it was a crucial indicator of how Princeton stood as a team after returning from spring break.
The baseball team finished up its pre-Ivy League schedule Sunday night with a doubleheader against Navy. The two games in Annapolis wrapped up the eight games the Tigers played over spring break. Princeton is 6-9 on the season heading into Ivy League play and went 4-4 over the break. The Tigers have been inconsistent so far this year but are playing well heading into their Ivy League schedule, in which they will try to defend their conference championship from last season.
The women’s lacrosse team played three games during its post-midterm hiatus, facing two teams ranked in the nation’s top 20 and another conference foe. Princeton (4-3 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) split two close non-league games around a resounding defeat of Columbia.
Finding the ideal leadoff hitter is no easy task for a softball team. This player must be fast and have the ability to get on base and score runs. When the team needs to start a rally, she is the player that the rest of the team counts on. For Princeton, this player is senior outfielder Nicole Ontiveros.
The crew season opened with a split finish this weekend for two of Princeton’s four teams. The women’s open crew’s first varsity eight opened its NCAA and Ivy League title defense with a loss to Michigan but a win over defending overall team NCAA titleholder Brown on Lake Carnegie on Saturday morning. Meanwhile, the men’s lightweight team bested Navy for the fourth straight year, while the second and third boats lost to the Midshipmen.
Sophomore Kelly Shon of the women’s golf team tied for first place at the Low Country Intercollegiate, a two-day tournament played on Sunday and Monday in Hilton Head, S.C. Senior teammate Wonji Choi finished in a tie for third as the team came in 11th of 15 competitors.
The men’s lacrosse team did not relax much on the final weekend of spring break — instead, it found itself battling through the longest game in school history. The contest lasted an unprecedented five overtime periods before senior attackman Alex Capretta broke the deadlock, leaving No. 12 Princeton (5-2 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) on top of Yale (2-4, 0-2) by a score of 10-9.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — In the end, a loss of momentum in the final minutes prevented the women’s basketball team from adding to the Ivy League history books by becoming only the second conference team to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. But the team’s loss to Kansas State on March 17 illuminated the future prospects of the team as an inflection point for coming years.
This weekend, five Princeton swimmers traveled to Seattle to represent the men’s swimming and diving team at the NCAA Championships. The Tiger quintet left with multiple top-50 finishes, two All-America Honorable Mentions and one first-team All-America honor.
While their peers were busy sleeping off midterm blues or scrambling to work on junior papers and senior theses, members of the men’s basketball team saw their season come to a sobering close at Pittsburgh in the quarterfinal of the College Basketball Invitational last Monday. Princeton (20-12) lost 82-61 to mark the end of the debut season for head coach Mitch Henderson ’98, which featured lots of encouraging play after a rough start.
