Vikram Rao and Gabriel Debenedetti discuss this week in sports.
In the final “On Tap” of the year, we interview, senior co-captain and second baseman Noel Gonzales of the baseball team.
The baseball team had a number of holes to fill this season due to graduation and the professional draft. With many inexperienced players in key roles, the Tigers were seen as an enigma in a wide-open league. Their season played out much as expected: They showed flashes of talent but had difficulty putting all the pieces together.
The softball team endured a tough season this year, as various struggles prevented the squad from performing up to its potential. The Tigers (12-32 overall, 6-14 Ivy League) struggled early on and improved their play over the course of the season but were unable to establish a rhythm, finishing third in the Ivy League South Division and tied for sixth overall.
It was a season of ups and downs for the men’s tennis team. Despite finishing on a losing note, the team had a successful season overall. The Tigers (8-13 overall, 4-3 Ivy League) achieved their first winning Ivy League record since 2007 and remained in contention for the Ivy League crown until the final conference match against Columbia.
The women’s golf team played a total of nine tournaments this season. Princeton opened the year in September with a third-place finish in a field of 12 at the Princeton Invitational and continued to a fourth-place finish in the Ivy League Championships.
After a strong performance on Saturday at the outdoor Heptagonal Championships that closed with both the men’s and women’s track and field teams in sight of the Ivy League title, neither Princeton team emerged from the weekend on top, as the men’s program finished 36 points behind Cornell for second place and the women finished in fourth place behind Cornell, Brown and Columbia.
“Someday love will find you. Break those chains that bind you. One night will remind you, how we touched and went our separate ways.”When you combine Bob the bus driver, Journey music videos, assistant coach Derek Ellingson on the seat drums, assistant coach Serela Kay on the air piano and head coach Luis Nicolao on lead vocals, there is no way the women’s water polo team cannot get fired up for its away matches. “Nothing gets us pumped more than some 1980s air piano,” senior driver and tri-captain Helen Meigs said.
Before the season started, head coach Chris Sailer called the women’s lacrosse team a “youth movement.” As nine seniors from the team graduated last spring — including talented midfield trio Holly McGarvie, Kristin Schwab and Katie Cox — it was anybody’s guess how the Tigers would look on the field this time around.
When Jeff McCown and Carl Hamming joined the men’s volleyball team as freshmen in 2006, their rookie season ended at an even 6-6 in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Tait Division. Their 2008 EIVA finish was identical and was followed by a disappointing 4-9 finish last year. This year, however, the co-captains and three-year starters were determined to end on a high note.
It was the moment the men’s lacrosse team had been waiting for.With just one second left in the first overtime period of the championship game of the inaugural Ivy League tournament and the score tied 9-9, junior attackman Jack McBride found himself in front of the Cornell net with the balance of the game hanging on his stick. And he did not disappoint.
Vikram Rao and Gabriel Debenedetti discuss this week in sports.
Since arriving at Princeton in the fall of 2007, junior Barrett LaChance has been an integral member of the men's lightweight crew that won the Head of the Charles the past two seasons. In this interview, LaChance talks about the strides he's made since freshman year and his love for ’90s grunge music.
Last Saturday, the men’s lacrosse team was narrowly defeated by No. 6 Cornell in the final game of the regular season. No. 9 Princeton (9-4 overall, 4-2 Ivy League), however, may get the chance to exact revenge on the Big Red.
The men’s track and field team will attempt to capture the outdoor Ivy League Heptagonal Championship for the first time since 2000 this weekend. The Tigers will face stiff competition, especially from Cornell, which has won the last seven titles. For the last four years, Princeton has finished second to Cornell.
It’s common knowledge that Philadelphia sports fans are animals and probably the rowdiest in all of American sports. They boo their own team, kick their players out of town, and are despised by the very athletes they support. Hell, they even booed Santa Claus.
"What’s the longest river in the world? Da Nile! How do you keep a dog in the yard? Da fence! How do you make babies outdoors? Fucking in tents! Denial, Defense, Fucking intense!”
The draws are finally out: The women’s tennis team’s first opponent in the NCAA tournament will be the University of Virginia.
Last weekend was full of challenges for three of Princeton’s varsity crews. The men’s first lightweight boat lost its 20-race winning streak in a narrow loss to Harvard on Saturday, and the men’s heavyweights, looking to regain the Content Cup from Brown, were unable to close the 3-second gap.
One of the best things about writing about sports — or anything — is making an outrageous-sounding, grandiose argument that at first glance appears wrong in the extreme, and then arguing it to death. If you argue poorly, you look like an idiot. If you argue well, you still look like an idiot, but at least you have some strange satisfaction that you’ve stirred the pot. So, on that note, I make the following statement: Michael Jordan is very underrated.
