Although the men’s tennis team has only 11 members, they are well known on campus as a diverse group in part because three members — or roughly a quarter of the team — came to the United States from abroad to attend Princeton.
Kashif Smith was the only racer to finish in under seven seconds in the 60m dash in New Haven, Conn., last weekend, winning the event in 6.98 seconds. The junior sprinter was one of many victorious Tigers, because the men’s track and field team won its seventh straight Harvard-Yale-Princeton title. Smith placed third in the 200m dash behind sophomore Sebastian Steffen and junior Austin Hollimon. After the Princeton Invitational this weekend, the team will travel to The Armory in New York to compete in the Ivy League championships.
As the NBA trade deadline approaches, every analyst under the sun is throwing out ideas for reasonable trades designed to improve both teams or at least to save money for one team while giving another team a key cog for a playoff run. These are not those ideas.
On Friday, senior guard Addie Micir played 37 minutes in the women’s basketball team’s 57-35 rout of Columbia. One minute after the final whistle, Micir was vomiting. The 6-foot-tall co-captain was battling the flu.
After spending 11 of the last 14 years as a part of the women’s volleyball team, Sabrina King ’01 will finally take over the top spot. Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67 announced Friday that King will be the Tigers’ new head coach.
The women’s water polo team nearly pulled off a sweep at its season-opening Princeton Invitational this weekend but lost to a ranked opponent in its final game to finish 3-1. The No. 18 Tigers (3-1 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) defeated George Washington (1-3) and Brown (1-3) on Saturday. They returned to DeNunzio Pool the following day to beat Colorado State (3-6) but closed with a tight loss to No. 19 Pacific (6-3).
In my last column, I discussed the favorites in each NBA conference to win their respective championships and participate in the finals. Now I want to look at the opposite side of the spectrum for each conference: the least-favorites and the teams that have the best chance to make the playoffs in the near future.
In its nine winning matches this season, the Penn State men’s volleyball team has lost only five of 32 games. Despite a close third game decided by only two points, Princeton (1-6 overall, 0-3 EIVA) was unable to take a sixth on Saturday as No. 11 Penn State (9-3, 4-0) topped the Tigers in three sets, 25-17, 25-16, 25-23.
This weekend, the men’s and women’s track teams proved their dominance over Harvard and Yale at the annual Harvard-Princeton-Yale meet. The competition, held this year in New Haven, Conn., is a chance for the Ivy League’s three oldest rivals to get up close and personal. The Tigers’ sweep provided the seventh straight title for the men’s team and the second consecutive win for the women.
If the men’s wrestling team had to suffer a sweep, it was fitting that it should come against the nation’s top team. The Tigers’ final Ivy League match saw them defeated by the Big Red 44-0. With five wrestlers ranked sixth or higher nationally in their respective classifications, Cornell undoubtedly had the advantage in Saturday’s contest, and it proved itself deserving of that top spot.
For each of the past three years, the seniors on the men’s basketball team have entered Cornell’s Newman Arena, and for each of the past three years, Princeton has left Ithaca in defeat. But senior guard and tri-captain Kareem Maddox was tired of losing at Cornell (6-16 overall, 2-6 Ivy League), and for the first time in the seniors’ careers, the Tigers beat the Big Red on the road, 57-55.
The men’s ice hockey team went on the road this weekend to play Harvard on Friday and No. 17 Dartmouth on Saturday. The Tigers (14-9-2 overall, 9-7-2 ECAC Hockey) played Harvard to a 4-4 tie in overtime but lost 4-1 to Dartmouth.
This weekend, the women’s hockey team fought for a pair of league wins to stay in the race for home-ice advantage in the upcoming ECAC Hockey Tournament. Princeton (14-12-1 overall, 11-8-1 ECAC Hockey) dismantled Union (2-27-3, 1-17-2) 3-1 on Friday night and took down Rensselaer (10-14-7, 8-10-2) 4-2 on Saturday, improving to fifth in the league.
The signs that sprang up around campus advertising the men’s squash match against Trinity ranged from the direct — “We must stop them” — to the outrageous — “Justin Bieber ... will not be at the men’s squash match this weekend.” Whatever you think about the team’s marketing techniques, they proved effective. A standing-room-only crowd gathered in Jadwin Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon to watch Princeton take its shot at the nation’s top-ranked team and its record winning streak.
The women’s basketball team regained first place in the Ivy League this weekend with 22-point victories over Columbia and Cornell at Jadwin Gymnasium. Harvard (13-8 overall, 5-2 Ivy League), which took first place after a 73-67 victory over the Tigers (17-4, 6-1) last weekend at Lavietes Pavilion, dropped to third place with losses to Yale and Brown this weekend.
During what head coach Zoltan Dudas has called an “interesting” season, the Tigers had an exciting weekend of competition at the 2011 Ivy League Fencing Championships in Jadwin Gymnasium. After two days of fierce fencing, the women’s team swept its opponents, finishing with a 6-0 record and defending its Ivy League title. The men’s team fought through narrow losses to finish fourth behind Harvard, Yale and Penn.
One week ago, the women’s basketball team was about to face Harvard and Dartmouth. By the end of the weekend, the Crimson had emerged on top, leaving the Tigers in second place in the Ivy League.
The competition for the Ivy League crown will be fierce this weekend. Six men’s and seven women’s fencing teams, each of which has received votes in national polls, will descend upon Jadwin Gymnasium for the conference championships.
The women’s ice hockey team plays its final two home games of the regular season this weekend. The Tigers will face Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The last time the Trinity College men’s squash team came to Jadwin Gymnasium, fans saw one of the most thrilling matches in collegiate squash history. In the 2009 Men's College Squash Association National Team Championships, Princeton and the Bantams — then riding an 11-year, 201-match win streak — traded early matches and were tied at 4. Mauricio Sanchez ’09 fought back from a 2-0 deficit against Baset Chaudhry to force a deciding fifth game, but the visitor recovered to win, clinching the national championship and Trinity’s second 5-4 victory at Jadwin in two weeks.
