The baseball team was swept this weekend, managing to score only three runs in a three-game series. Under these circumstances, a little pessimism might be expected, but that’s not how the Tigers say they feel.
After dropping two close games to non-conference opponents last week, the women’s lacrosse team dominated its Ivy League opener on Saturday afternoon against Brown. The No. 17 Tigers historically have a strong record in the series, and the 18-8 victory over the weekend was their 22nd consecutive win against the Bears.
When junior first baseman Alex Peyton stepped up to the plate in the first inning against Maryland pitcher Lexi Carroll on Saturday afternoon with the bases loaded, she only had one thing on her mind — to put the ball in play. The junior did more than that, however, using of the strength in her 5-foot-10-inch frame to pull the first pitch she saw over the fence, giving Princeton (2-7) a 4-0 lead over the Terrapins.
On Monday afternoon, the women’s basketball team debuted in the AP Top 25 poll with a No. 24 ranking, becoming the first Ivy League team ever to be listed in a national poll. Hours later, the Tigers learned their NCAA Tournament draw: Princeton will face Kansas State in Bridgeport, Conn., at 11:20 a.m. Saturday.
For the second consecutive year, the men’s and women’s fencing teams will likely have the maximum 12 competitors at the NCAA Championships. Princeton filled 11 slots, plus five alternates, at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic/South Regional on Saturday, with three fencers winning individual titles.
The No. 14 men’s lacrosse team dropped a nail-biting 9-8 game in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic against No. 8 North Carolina this weekend, eight days after losing 10-8 to No. 2 John Hopkins. The pair of heartbreaking defeats leaves the Tigers, who are averaging over 10 goals per game this season while only allowing eight, with an underwhelming 2-2 record.
For the men’s basketball team, a victory over Penn last week did not mean the end of the season. After it was not selected to compete in the National Invitation Tournament on Sunday night, Princeton accepted an invitation to play in the College Basketball Invitational. The Tigers will visit the University of Evansville at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night for their first-round game.
In a weekend that was critical to the EIVA standings, the men’s volleyball team lost to both the New Jersey Institute of Technology and George Mason. The defeats drop the Tigers (6-7 overall, 5-5 EIVA) into fifth place, putting their postseason hopes in a precarious position, as only the top four finishers in the eight-team EIVA will make the playoffs.
Going into the bell lap of the NCAA mile championship final, junior Peter Callahan sat comfortably in eighth place. After a relatively slow and tactical first half, the race was shaping up to favor Callahan and his devastating kick. At the front of the bunched pack, Chris O’Hare of Tulsa and Miles Batty of BYU began to move, spurring the star-studded field of sub-four minute milers into high gear. Driving forward, Callahan struggled to find an opening in the crowd before finally moving out into the outside lanes off of the final turn and sprinted to a sixth-place finish and his first All-American honor.
Competing in the final races of the indoor season last weekend, the men’s and women’s track teams continued to wipe more records off the books. The women’s team went to the Eastern College Athletic Conference championships in Massachusetts, while a few select athletes from the men’s team traveled to the Columbia and Notre Dame last-chance NCAA qualifying meets.
The baseball team doesn’t shy away from competition.Good thing, since the Tigers (2-2) will be taking on the two-time reigning national champions this weekend. Princeton is heading down to No. 2 South Carolina for a three-game series against the Gamecocks (10-1), starting tonight at 7 p.m. The Gamecocks will undoubtedly be the top competition for the Tigers this season, but they say that they remain undaunted.
Princeton’s No. 14 men’s lacrosse team will travel to Baltimore this weekend to take on No. 8 North Carolina in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic. The Tigers (2-1) are looking to rebound from a heartbreaking 10-8 loss against a strong No. 2 Johns Hopkins squad and maintain a winning record. Despite the tough loss, Princeton has looked impressive in 2012 and will need another solid performance against the Tar Heels (4-2) to confirm the increasingly apparent notion that it has improved dramatically from last season.
Brown (2-1 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) will host the women’s lacrosse team on Saturday afternoon in Providence, R.I. Both the Bears and No. 20 Princeton (1-2) will be participating in their fourth contest of the year, but this weekend will open conference play for the Tigers. Princeton’s conference and non-conference schedule is highly integrated, however, and it will continue playing non-conference games through late April. This is the third consecutive season that the Tigers have opened Ivy League play against Brown. The Bears already began their Ivy League games with a victory over Columbia this past Saturday.
For many new and inexperienced fans of men’s lacrosse, the strategy of the game is often compared to basketball. The offense will settle a possession around the goal and pass while moving in complex patterns to find an opening for a goal.However, unlike basketball, scoring does not necessitate that the opposing team gets the ball. In lacrosse, after each score the two teams must fight for the next possession in a specialized ritual called the face-off. A face-off occurs at the beginning of every quarter and after each goal, and in a typical game a team can expect to face-off about 20 times.
Two players on the men’s basketball team were named to the 2012 All-Ivy team. Junior forward Ian Hummer — who leads the Tigers in scoring, rebounds and blocks — was a unanimous selection to the All-Ivy first team. Senior guard Doug Davis was named to the second team.
Playing the spoiler role is a bizarre and beautiful concept. In all of sports, there are few matchups more fascinating than the one between a team with nothing to lose and a team that stands to lose everything. For the latter, the motivation is self-evident. For the former, the game is a test of commitment to something more basic and universal than a trophy or banner.
Check out our early power rankings for the 2012-13 men's basketball Ivy League season.
The women’s basketball team finished off a perfect Ivy League season with a 79-42 trouncing of the Penn Quakers on Tuesday night. The Tigers (24-4 overall, 14-0 Ivy League) will head to the NCAA Tournament having won 17 consecutive games to close the regular season.This game was defined by a tremendous surge from Princeton at the end of the first half and beginning of the second, when the hosts went on a 36-8 run, securing their 14th conference victory.
Though other rivalries have surfaced in recent years, the Princeton-Penn feud still carries a special aura. And for seniors Doug Davis and Pat Saunders, the possibility of ending their final game at Jadwin with Penn celebrating an Ivy League title was more than enough motivation. The Tigers took control with a 23-6 opening run and held on through the second half, crushing the Quakers' dreams with a 62-52 win.
The women’s water polo team headed into last weekend without having tasted defeat through the first 13 games of the season. However, that all changed at the Harvard Invitational, when the Tigers played their first nationally ranked opponent, No. 12 San Jose State.The No. 18 Tigers (16-1 overall, 4-0 CWPA South) started off the weekend with a tense comeback win against host Harvard (8-5, 1-1).
