After snapping a four-game losing streak with a 7-3 thrashing of Seton Hall this past Tuesday, the men’s soccer team will look to continue its offensive turnaround this Saturday in Providence against Brown.
The women’s volleyball team heads to New York this weekend to continue Ivy League play against Columbia and Cornell. The Tigers (10-5 overall, 3-0 Ivy League) remain undefeated in league play after a pair of dramatic five-game victories last weekend at Dillon Gymnasium against Harvard and Dartmouth. Thus far, each of Princeton’s three league wins has gone the maximum distance.
The Red Sox collapse — where to begin? A week after what must rank as one of the worst regular season collapses in sports history, I am only beginning to comprehend what happened. For those who did follow the team’s final games, some statistics may be in order. According to coolstandings.com, cited approvingly by sports statistics guru Nate Silver, the Red Sox had a 99.6 percent chance of making the playoffs in early September.
The men’s soccer and men’s water polo teams are not the only Princeton squads to rely on rookies early in their fall seasons. Here’s a look at some other freshmen who have made an impact while adjusting to college life:
On just achievements and outstanding awards alone, copious pages could be written on the freshman class of the men’s water polo team. The number of goals, assists, steals and blocks, the nomination and attainment of captaincy, most valuable players and All-Americas, the recognition of National Merit Scholars, valedictorians and academic standouts ... And that’s far from it all. The contributions that Sam Butler, Drew Hoffenberg, Thomas Nelson, Kayj Shannon, Matt Weber and Kevin Zhang bring to the pool and to the classroom don’t just end there.
Last season, the men’s soccer team relied on a steady, consistent attack to score the goals it needed to secure the Ivy League championship. The Tigers created many opportunities off the run of play, but one of their core strengths was their ability to score off of restarts, corner kicks and junior defender Mark Linnville’s long throw-ins. It was a dependable and strategic — if not always pretty — way to win games. Enter freshman forward Cameron Porter.
The men’s soccer team maintained its early lead against Seton Hall and finished with a final margin of 7-3, reversing a four-game losing streak late Tuesday night. The Tigers, who entered the game with only one win, matched their goal total to this point in the season with a shocking offensive outburst.
Clare Gallagher, a sophomore on the women’s track and cross country teams, has represented Princeton at the Heptagonal Championships in both sports. Hailing from Colorado and planning to major in ecology and evolutionary biology, she has a personality so large it is almost impossible to capture in words. The ‘Prince’ recently interviewed Clare to get her stance on running, school, laser tag, the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic and pinata night with the men’s hockey team.
Here’s a hypothetical exercise: Three Ivy League students — a math major, a computer science major and a politics major — are bored on a Friday night. “Moneyball” is playing at the local theater. Although the three have little interest in sports, they decide to check it out — it’s free for students, after all, and they have nothing better to do.
The men’s club rugby team steamrolled over a weak Cornell squad Saturday afternoon as it continued its undefeated season with an impressive 60-12 victory over the Big Red. Princeton’s season-opening six-game winning streak is the strongest start the Tigers have had in many years.
The women’s volleyball team does not like living life on the edge. But that’s where it stands after beating both Harvard and Dartmouth over the weekend in tight 3-2 matches, their third straight five-game victory at Dillon Gymnasium.
“Such a relief, such a relief,” freshman midfielder Sydney Kirby said after the field hockey team’s 3-2 double-overtime win against Columbia on Saturday. The Tigers were tied with Columbia for 55 minutes before Kirby’s goal ended a long game and kept Princeton’s hopes of winning the Ivy League alive.
When most freshmen are assigned roommates over the summer, I assume they were as excited as I was. We all immediately search their names on Facebook to try to judge the people we will be living with. I did not find my assigned roommate on Facebook at first — I found him on ESPN.com. He was a nationally ranked football prospect.
Last week, the men’s water polo team trekked across the country to challenge some of the best teams in college water polo under the California sun. Landing first in Los Angeles, No. 14 Princeton took on No. 11 Loyola Marymount University and No. 1 University of Southern California. The Tigers then headed south to Long Beach for the annual SoCal Tournament. Only playing against higher-ranked teams, the Tigers went 1-5 for the weekend, beating Long Beach State 8-4 for their lone win of the weekend.
Four first-half goals were more than enough for Dartmouth to topple the men’s soccer team on Saturday. One of the early favorites in the Ivy League, Princeton fell victim to a series of unfortunate soccer-related events at Dartmouth’s Burnham Field, losing 4-1. The Tigers once again dominated possession of the ball and outshot their opponents, but as in many previous games, they could not put the ball in the net.
The women’s soccer team could not find its first Ivy League victory this weekend, as second-half woes and finishing issues again hampered the Tigers at Dartmouth. The visitors dropped a tough 1-0 decision in the final minutes, falling to 0-2 in conference play.
This past weekend saw the men’s and women’s cross country teams face their first true challenges of the season. With their past races only including an easy win at the Fordham Fiasco and a destruction at the women’s annual Harvard-Yale meet, both Tiger squads were looking forward to seeing how well they stacked up against other nationally ranked teams at this early point in the season at the prestigious Notre Dame Invitational in South Bend, Ind.
Fifty-two weeks ago, the football team could not stop Columbia. The Lions scored 42 points and amassed 528 yards of total offense, dominating and demoralizing the Tigers in Manhattan. Princeton — off to a reasonably promising start — took a turn for the worse, losing the rest of its games that season.
Ten straight games. It had been 10 straight games since the football team had tasted victory on the field. But on Saturday night, the Tigers fell no more, as Princeton took down Columbia 24-21 in the finale of a three-game homestand and its Ivy League opener.
The football team ended a 10-game losing streak on Saturday, opening Ivy League play with a 24-21 victory over Columbia. Go back through our live blog to relive the action!
