Sports

Club field hockey team sets its sights on final four

The members of Princeton's club field hockey team want to make one thing clear: They're here for a championship and they have a team talented enough to match their ambitions.Coming off a season in which Princeton made it to the final four of the National Field Hockey League, the Tigers have high expectations for the coming year."Final Four is our goal this year," sophomore defender Stephanie Burset said.Standouts sophomore Laura Adams, junior Katherine Hamilton and senior Lauren Hedinger anchor one of the more dominant midfields in the league, while the back line provides solid defensive support.

Ancient Eight shaping up before Ivy play

This weekend the football team kicks off its Ivy League schedule with a matchup against Columbia.

It takes two: doubles for dummies

To the casual observer, the basic tennis doubles match follows a very clear pattern: serve, return, volley and eventually hit a winner.

The long road back to health

Willis McGahee in the Fiesta Bowl. Carson Palmer against the Steelers. Lawrence Taylor and Joe Theisman.

My Mavs beaten by team of scrubs

Editor's Note: This is the fifth in a series of postcards that Daily Princetonian sports staff writers wrote about their experiences in the wide world of sports this summer.

Making a stand without standing

Dunking, splashing, and pushing ? not just childhood horseplay but defensive strategy for the men's water polo team."The best way to describe water polo defense is to compare it to basketball," head coach Luis Nicolao explained.

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Hoopin' it up in the Holy Land

Anyone who predicted that Jersey boy Scott Greenman '06 would become a naturalized citizen of Israel just four months after his Princeton graduation must have sensed unique strength in his Jewish faith.How such a visionary would account for the way the former Tiger point guard celebrated his first Rosh Hashanah overseas is another matter."What our team did was we went up to the restaurant in the hotel and put napkins on our heads as yarmulkes, said about two prayers, then ate, and it was like any other meal," Greenman said.That doesn't sound like the itinerary of a pilgrimage; while Greenman's religion played a role in his landing where he did, the reality is that he didn't choose Israel ? the Holy Land chose him.Greenman capped off his fine career on the Princeton men's basketball team with a breathtaking farewell season, in which he earned unanimous first-team all-Ivy honors and a reputation for delivering in the clutch.

Missing Matheson, Tigers host Loyola

The last time junior midfielder Diana Matheson missed games to train with the Canadian national team, the women's soccer team suffered a disappointing weekend.

Field no match for Princeton

The women's golf team defended its home course this weekend at the Princeton Invitational, beating second-place Harvard by 18 shots, setting a new team scoring record in the process and winning the Invitational for the fourth year in a row."I don't think we could have imagined a better start to the season than leading after the first round with a record-breaking team total of 290 and defending the team title for the fourth year in a row," senior co-captain Alexis Etow said.Junior Annika Welander posted a Saturday round score of 69 en route to taking home her first collegiate title.She was not the only Princeton golfer to find success at the Springdale Golf Club.

Frosh lead the way to a strong showing at invitational

With the conference season months away, this weekend was only the second time both the men's and women's tennis teams had their relatively young squads face competition.

After loss, Tigers take it to Columbia

They say practice makes perfect; if you find yourself down and out you've got to get back on the proverbial horse.

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No Ivy, no challenge at tourney

Three weekends, three tournaments, three titles. As the women's volleyball team returned to campus Saturday night, they brought with them a 9-0 record and the Red Flash Invitational MVP sophomore middle blocker Lindsay Ensign.Looking forward to the beginning of Ivy League play next Saturday at Penn, the Tigers could not have asked for a more successful run through the pre-season tournaments.Coming into the season, Princeton was unsure about what this season would hold.

Tigers sunk by Navy in semis, grab third

Navy did it again. In the semifinals of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship, the men's water polo team was sunk by a determined Midshipmen squad (9-4 overall, 1-0 ECAC). Despite being up two goals at half, the No.

Offense sharp despite poor red-zone attack

If the bane of every football team's existence is to finish drives for points in the red zone, the Tigers found a unique way around it: avoid the red zone almost entirely.Thanks to the poise and quality of an offense that spread the ball around, Princeton earned the team's second win of the season in as many games.In the end, it was solid, fluid, connected play by virtually every part of the team's maturing offense that gave the Tigers a devastating possession advantage and with it, a well-played victory."Obviously it's nice when we control the ball because it keeps our defense off the field," head coach Roger Hughes said.

Tigers fire blanks in season opener

Sprint football's wideouts were shut out by Cornell (2-0 overall) Friday night, as the Tigers lost, 29-0.With Princeton's pass-oriented offense, one stat is the most telling: The team completed just 16 of 54 passes for 128 yards and three interceptions."The [passing] percentage was so low because the quarterback and receivers were not on the same page," head coach Thomas Cocuzza said.

Men, women turn in strong performances

The women's cross country team raced to the top this past weekend, leaving both Harvard and Yale in the dust at the annual H-Y-P meet.

Second-half effort stalls in final minutes

After an impressive start to the season, the men's soccer team opened the Ivy League portion of its schedule with a disappointing loss to Yale (4-3-1 overall, 1-0-0 Ivy League). Despite brilliant play by senior goaltender Justin Oppenheimer, Princeton (3-3-2, 0-1-0) fell to the Bulldogs by a score of 3-2 in Saturday afternoon's match in New Haven, Ct.

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