A 4-0 Weekend On Ice

Today's subject is hockey, specifically Princeton hockey. 

Even more specifically, that's Princeton ice hockey, not the field kind. 

Before that, though, TigerBlog would like to say two things about college football. 

First, every Ivy League football fan does need to offer a tip of the hat to Yale for its performance in the FCS Playoffs, which saw the Bulldogs defeat Youngstown State 43-42 last week in the opening round and then fall 21-13 Saturday to a Montana State team that could very easily win the whole thing. For the first year of the Ivy participation in the playoffs, it was a positive result — two teams got bids, one won a game. 

Don't underestimate how much impact this will have on Ivy League football overall. 

Second, what in the world is up with the College Football Playoff selection committee? May TigerBlog make a suggestion? Get rid of the in-season updates. 

You don't need to do anything to artificially inflate interest in the sport. It already has all that it needs. All you did was put yourself in a completely unjustifiable position for leaving out Notre Dame. 

Also, Texas would have certainly been in had it opened its season at home against, say, Ohio, rather than at Ohio State. That's not a great message to send. 

Okay, enough of that. 

Princeton hockey, remember? 

The Princeton men and women combined to go 4-0 on their respective road trips, with a women's Central New York sweep of No. 14 Colgate (6-1 Friday night) and No. 8 Cornell (3-2 Saturday). The men also had a pair of wins in New York, 5-1 at Union Friday night and 4-0 at RPI Saturday night. 

That's a combined four wins by a combined score of 18-3. That's pretty good stuff. 

When was the last time Princeton had both hockey teams sweep on the road in the same weekend? It's only happened twice before, in 1998 and in 1989. TigerBlog would like to say that he researched that all afternoon yesterday, but really he just asked his colleague Chas Dorman, who had the answer.  

For the women, Mackenzie Alexander had her first career hat trick in the win at Colgate. Issy Wunder had two goals Saturday. Emerson O'Leary had a goal and four assists for the weekend.  

The men got five goals from five different players in the win at Union and had seven different players with at least one on the weekend. The only Tiger with more than one on the weekend and with at least one in both games was Jake Manfre, who had one against Union and two against RPI.

Conor Callaghan was in goal for both games for the men, and he made a combined 51 saves while allowing one goal in 120 minutes. Again, those are impressive numbers.  

It would hardly be surprising to see some league honors come Callaghan's way. 

The women have now won seven straight games. The men were swept at Bowling Green Thanksgiving weekend but have won four straight ECAC games.  

Where does that leave everyone? 

The women are in first place in the league with 22 points after 10 games. Usually at this time of year there's a discrepancy in games played, but 10 of the ECAC teams (including Princeton) have played 10, while Clarkson and St. Lawrence have played nine each. 

The men are in fourth place after having played six ECAC games, which is equal to the fewest anyone has in the league. 

Next up for the men will be a home game Dec. 28 against Brown. That is a Sunday by the way, and there will be no accompanying Yale game that weekend, in that this Princeton-Brown game will not count in the standings for either the ECAC or Ivy League. 

That game, by the way, will be the first of five straight on Hobey Baker ice, with home weekends against Dartmouth and Harvard and then RPI and Union to start 2026. Dartmouth, by the way, is the only unbeaten team in Division men's hockey and is currently No. 1 in the national NPI rankings, a system that has replaced Pairwise as the official ratings. 

Princeton is 18th in the NPI, as an aside. 

The women are off now until the first weekend in January, when Stonehill will come to Hobey Baker Rink. 

The 2025 portion of the schedule has been fun for both teams. The 2026 part should keep getting better.  

24 And Then 7

Welcome to a 24-event weekend at Princeton Athletics. 

That's actually a minimum of 24 events. It, hopefully, will be more than that. 

Come Sunday, when the wrestling team completes its day at the Patriot Open at George Mason, there will then be seven remaining athletic events for all of 2025 — with three women's basketball games, three men's basketball games and one men's hockey game. 

There will be first-semester exams. There will be Christmas. There will be New Year's. There will be all of the holiday season. 

What there won't be are a lot of Tiger sporting events.  

Oh, and while TigerBlog is on the subject, there is nothing that can make him hit the mute button faster than a commercial that takes a nice, cheery, happy, traditional Christmas song and substitute those lyrics with others that are designed to sell you something that whoever the intended recipient is doesn't want. 

TigerBlog sort of paraphrased George Carlin there (and cleaned it up quite a bit).

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Today, as TB wrote earlier in the week, is NCAA tournament day for the men's water polo team, who will be taking on second-seeded UCLA at 7 Eastern time in the third of four quarterfinal matches. The winner will take on the winner of the last game, between host Stanford and UC-Davis in the semifinals tomorrow. 

The other side of the bracket has No. 1 seed USC against Concordia-Irvine and No. 4 seed Fordham against Santa Clara.

You can watch the water polo match HERE.

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The women's volleyball team played at USC in the NCAA tournament opening round last night. 

The presence of the Tiger teams in California resulted in an early reunion. Joanna Dwyer, the Princeton expatriate who now works at USC, got to see her former co-workers Alex Henn and Aylin Arifkhan, who are traveling with the women's volleyball team. 

Alex sent this picture along of the three:

It's about the relationships you make, right? TB has pictures like dating back decades with former workers with whom he is still great friends. 

He hopes the same for them.  

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There isn't a lot on the Princeton schedule this weekend that takes place in home territory. 

As such, you could go this evening to the new racket center on the Meadows Campus and see the men's and women's squash teams play Williams. It's an extraordinary facility; if you haven't been there, this is a great chance to check it out. 

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The other home teams are the men's and women's swimming and diving teams, who are hosting the Big Al Invitational at DeNunzio Pool. 

In addition to the great competition in the pool, the event each year keeps alive the memory of someone who passed away tragically while a Tiger swimmer. Here is what TB has written about him before: 

The Big Al Invitational continues to honor the memory of Alan Ebersole, a Princeton swimmer who passed away in an accident in Florida in October 2004. TB never met Ebersole, but he remembers the outpouring of grief at his loss and the way the Princeton swimming community rallied around the Ebersole family. Having this event, which has grown into one of the best early-season meets in the country, has to be very special to everyone who knew him.  

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The men's and women's basketball teams are on the road this weekend, both in the Central time zone. 

The women are in Tennessee, taking on Belmont. Tip off is tomorrow at 2:30 Eastern on ESPN+. Belmont is 4-4 on the season, with a 22-point win over Brown as one of those four wins. 

The men are in Chicago, taking on Loyola. Tip is at 2 Eastern on the USA Network. The Ramblers are 2-7 on the year, with wins over Cleveland State and, most recently, Central Michigan. 

Loyola, of course, is the school that was represented by Sister Jean, who passed away two months ago at the age of 106. You remember her from the team's run to the 2018 Final Four. 

Do you remember which teams Loyola beat along the way? The answer is: Miami, Nevada, Tennessee and then Kansas State. 

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TigerBlog sends get-well wishes to Ella Cashman of the field hockey team, who had her completely torn ACL repaired yesterday. Cashman played about 30 minutes in both the NCAA semifinal and final despite the injury, suffered in the Ivy League tournament final win over Harvard. 

Cash, as she is know, missed only the first two games of the NCAA tournament with that injury. She's extraordinarily tough, as you might have guessed. 

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The complete weekend schedule is HERE. 

 

GPG Would Be So Proud Of Ashley Chea

As a college student a long time ago, TigerBlog used to play pickup basketball and then squash at Gimbel Gym. 

He wonders now how he would have responded had someone said to him "hey, you know you're going to play way more of both at Jadwin Gym up the road, right?"

Hey, there's no way to predict the future, right? 

Back in those pickup basketball games, it was a mixture of undergrads who thought they were better than they were, University staff from basically any and all departments and some random types who showed up every day. TB remembers one player in particular, a rather unathletic looking man who looked to be soooo old at the time (but was probably 25 or so years younger than TB is now) and who worked for dining services.

He couldn't run too fast, and he was about 30 or so pounds away from being in good shape. You know what he could do, though? He could pass like almost nobody TB has ever seen, on any level. He was Larry Bird-like with the ball. 

In one of those many games where he maneuvered to be on this guy's team, TB remembers aimlessly drifting from the top of the key towards the basket while the ball was in Great Passer Guy's hands. TB could see him, but GPG couldn't see TB, since he was facing the other way. 

Then, in a blink, the ball was in TB's hands, with nobody between him and the hoop. It was so startling that TB almost had the ball sail right past him, but he managed to control it and make the layup. 

In all his years of Jadwin Lunchball, TB never tried anything like that. Others did, often with somewhat unproductive results — like that one no-look pass that ended up slamming off one of the screens around the court. Who threw that pass? TB can't recall (actually he can, but, you know, he'll keep it to himself). 

TB thought about all of that when he saw Ashley Chea's pass the other night against Seton Hall. Chea, playing the role of GPG, threw it perfectly to Olivia Hutcherson — sort of a much better version of TigerBlog when it comes to playing basketball — for the layup. 

It was hardly shocking to see that it showed up as one of the top plays of the day yesterday on SportsCenter. In fact it came in at No. 3:

eyes in the back of her head. @ashleyycheaa 🤝 @oliviahutch2023 #GetStops 🐯🏀 | #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/Ow5SLPHb9h

— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) December 3, 2025

GPG would have been so proud. It was an incredible pass by Chea. How in the world did she do that? 

As for the game, Princeton trailed by as many as 14 in the first half before taking down the Pirates 82-78 in what was a very, very entertaining game. Skye Belker led the Tigers with 26, including a three with three minutes to go that put Princeton up for good. 

The game, and especially the final score, got TigerBlog to thinking. Coupled with the recent 100-93 win over Penn State, it made TB wonder how many times had 1) Carla Berbube's Princeton's teams allowed at least 78 points in a game and 2) won such a game. 

And so off to the record book TB went. What he found was extraordinary. 

Princeton's only loss this year was to Maryland, a Top 10 team, by the way. The score was 84-68.

So 84 is more than 78. That's one game. 

How many other times had Berube's Princeton teams allowed 78 or more prior to that? If you guessed "one," then you are correct. 

That game was a 79-76 loss at Utah last season. And that's it. Throw in the win over Rhode Island after the Maryland game, and that would be two games out of the first 150 she coached at Princeton.

That is not a lot.  

TB even went back and forth over the list to make sure he had that right. Since then, there have been two more games of allowing 78 or more points — and that's in a span of five games.  

And yet? Princeton won both of those games.  

What does it mean? TB isn't sure. He's willing to go with something along the lines of "Carla Berube knows what she's doing." 

Clearly she does: Her team is the No. 1-ranked Mid-Major team right now, with a NET ranking of No. 29 in all of Division I. 

Next up for Berube's team is a trip to Nashville, for a Saturday afternoon tip at Belmont. The game starts at 1 Central time, or 2 Eastern time and can be seen on ESPN+.

Off To California

Today begins with a thank you to everyone who was so generous during yesterday's Game Day. 

The final numbers for TAGD 12 aren't quite official yet. Still, it's clear from the preliminary information that once again, Princeton's friends, alums and supporters once again proved themselves to be generous, loyal — and more than anything — committed to helping provide the best possible experience for all Tiger athletes. 

So yes. Again, thank you very much for all you've done. 

Meanwhile, between Thanksgiving and TAGD, there have been a few Princeton stories that have fallen through a bit. For today, TigerBlog is speaking specifically about the two teams who are headed to the NCAA tournament this week.

Both, by the way, are headed to California. 

The women's volleyball team is headed to the southern part of the state, where it will take on Southern Cal Friday at 10 Eastern time in the tournament opening round. The winner will then play the winner of the match between BYU and Cal-Poly in the second round.

Princeton won the Ivy League championship and then the Ivy League tournament championship as well. This is from the story on goprincetontigers.com:

Lucia Scalamandre was honored the Ivy Tournament Most Outstanding Player after averaging 3.75 kills-per-set on a .481 hitting percentage in addition to 0.88 blocks. Scalamandre delivered a dominant performance in the Ivy Tournament final, recording a career and match-high 20 kills on a .515 hitting percentage and a match-high five blocks. She was joined on the All-Tournament Team by Valerie Nutakor, who averaged 4.00 kills and 2.75 digs, and Erin McNair, who also had averages of 4.00 kills and 2.75 digs. 

You can watch the matches on ESPN+. You can read more HERE.

The 64-team bracket is divided into four sections with eight seeds in each. Those 32 teams are hosting the first and second rounds. 

USC is the fourth seed in this side of the bracket. The Women of Troy are 25-6 overall and 15-5 in the Pac 12 Big Ten. 

There are 18 players on the USC roster. How many of them are from California? TB would have guessed 16. 

The answer is a surprising 11, though TB isn't quite sure what makes that surprising.  

Meanwhile, about six hours or so up the Pacific coast and three hours earlier, the men's water polo team takes on No. 2 overall seed UCLA at Stanford in the NCAA quarterfinals. The game begins at 7 Eastern time Friday. 

Unlike the women's volleyball tournament, there are only eight teams in the field for men's water polo, and the entire tournament will be played over three days, all at Stanford.  

It'll be a big day for all Princeton water polo fans, and that's a list that includes Joanna Dwyer, whose loyalties would really have been divided had Princeton been matched against USC, the top seed. 

Yeah, that's Joanna in the pool on the far right after the Tigers won the NWPC championship at Brown. That's five straight for Princeton, by the way, in case you're wondering why they're holding up five fingers. 

Joanna has left Princeton and is now starting her new job at USC, working with water polo and swimming and diving and a little women's basketball. 

The team she's joining is the top seed and plays the first game of the four games Friday, when the Trojans take on Concordia-Irvine. Game 2 will be fourth-seeded Fordham against San Jose State, and those winners play Saturday in the semifinal.

The bottom of the bracket has Princeton-UCLA and then Friday's nightcap, with the host Cardinal against UC-Davis. 

This is from the Princeton preview:

Princeton has four 50-goal scorers this season in Taylor Bell (58), Logan McCarroll (56), Adam Peocz (55) and Enrique Nuno (54), with Finn LeSieur (49) just one away from joining that group. The only other time Princeton had five 50-goal scorers in a season was 2017, with four, and Princeton has never had five 50-goal scorers in a season.  

You can read more HERE.

It'll be a big Friday — and hopefully beyond — in California for the Tigers. And you can watch both teams back-to-back. 

And once again, on behalf of everyone in the Department of Athletics, TigerBlog thanks you again for your TAGD generosity. 

You've invested in the right young people.  

TAGD Is Today

 

TAGD Website 

The first football game in Princeton history — and the sport's history for that matter, was played against Rutgers on Nov. 6, 1869.

The first baseball game in Princeton history — and first intercollegiate sporting event the school ever had — was played against Williams on Nov. 22, 1864. 

The final scores of those two events were somewhat laughable by modern standards. In football, it was 6-4 Rutgers. In baseball, it was 27-16 Princeton. 

It's pretty obvious how the football game was scheduled. The baseball game? How in the world did that come to be?

Did someone from one of the schools write a letter to the other saying something along the lines of "hey, it's November and all and Sherman is destroying Atlanta in the Civil War. Fancy a baseball game?"

What must those first games have actually looked like? And what would the athletes who competed then think of the modern-day Princeton Tigers?

They would have been surprised to see all of the women's varsity teams, that's for sure. They would be amazed by the size of the athletes today. They would be jealous of the facilities, the gear, the training, the coaching, television, internet and everything else about how Princeton operates in 2025.  

More than anything else, they'd probably be proud of what they started. Hopefully they'd understand the impact that what they started 161 years ago has had on the thousands who have followed them.  

That impact has been life-changing for so many. They've learned so much about themselves and what it means to be a teammate, and they've taken those lessons with them as they've gone out in the world.  

Today is the 12th edition of TAGD — Tiger Athletics Give Day. The first one, in 2014, was an offshoot of the 150th anniversary of that first baseball game. 

Since then, TAGD has grown into something way beyond anyone's wildest expectations. The number of people who generously donate and the dollars that have been raised shows so many different components of what makes Princeton Athletics so special. 

It's about loyalty. It's about paying forward the experience those who've worn these uniforms before have had. It's about fun, with some competition mixed in. 

Mostly, it's about the investment in the future of the athletes who benefit from this generosity.  

 

To have a life-changing experience like that is an immeasurable asset. Forget the championships. It's that experience that is the biggest part of what Princeton Athletics is all about.

And that experience is what an investment in TAGD is all about. 

Giving financial support is always about what you are investing in and believing in the positives that your investment will bring. In this case, you can be 100 percent certain that your investment is having a big impact. 

You can pick any team you want. Pick any player at random you want.

They all benefit from what happens today. And that benefit is then paid off in a big way by their lifetime contributions to society. 

Princeton Athletics has produced doctors, lawyers, educators, coaches, business professionals, military leaders, engineers, writers, actors and every other walk of life you care to name. They all draw every day on what they learned as Princeton athletes. 

As always, TAGD's rules are the same this year. Only gifts that are given from now through midnight tonight will count towards the challenges of total donors and total dollars. 

Today is a day of fun for all of those involved. There will be social media posts and friendly competition between the various Friends' Groups. There will be phone banks and outreach directly from the athletes. There will be celebrations of Princeton teams, past and present. 

Underneath it all, though, will be the real benefit of TAGD. 

Pick the team. Pick the athlete. Go back and look to those athletes from 2014, when TAGD first started, and see what they're doing today. Look ahead to what they'll be doing 10 more years from now, 20 more years from now. 

TigerBlog just finished spending the better part of three months with the field hockey team, who made it all the way to the NCAA final. Not every player on the team was a starter or superstar. Some were hurt and couldn't play. Others were backups. 

As he watched it all unfold, he saw them all go through their ups and downs. He saw them as they learned what college athletics at Princeton teaches. He has no doubt that every one of them will look back on this year as a major learning experience in her life. That experience would not have been possible without the generosity that TAGD brings out. 

Now multiply that across 38 teams.  

That's what your gift is supporting.

 

Game Day

OFFICIAL TAGD WEBSITE  

Welcome to December. 

Tomorrow, Dec. 2, will be Game Day for all 38 Princeton teams.  How is that possible? 

It'll be the 12th annual Tiger Athletics Give Day, the 24-hour fundraising competition that has brought out the Tiger in so many through the years. This year's theme is "Game Day," which, if you've been following, you've seen on each team's social media. 

Remember — only gifts made during the 24 hours of TAGD will count towards each team's total. TigerBlog has included the link to get you ready.

TB will have much more on TAGD tomorrow. For today, he offers a preliminary "thank you" to everyone who will be generously supporting Tiger Athletics. 

Meanwhile, how was your Thanksgiving? Did you miss TigerBlog? This weekend marks the only time all year that TB takes a four-day break. How'd you get along? 

TB watched a lot of football this past weekend. Here are two observations: 1) does everyone who makes a first down have to pose and point and 2) does every member of every defense need to run however far it is from the end zone after a turnover? 

Where's the originality? 

This weekend had the first snow games that TB has seen this season, at least. There's always some more fun about games in the snow, especially when you're home on your couch and not sitting out there. 

To that end, he chose to watch Northwestern-Illinois in the snow rather than Alabama-Auburn, which was presumably a much better game. Hey, snow is snow. 

The best game of the day, of course, had to be Yale's 43-42 comeback win over Youngstown State in the first round of the FCS playoffs. This was the first first round for the Ivy League, as you know. 

Yale trailed 35-7 at the half and 42-14 late in the third. And then in a blink, the Bulldogs were on their way to Montana for the second round. 

Comebacks like that require two things: 1) a complete reversal of momentum for the team that's coming back and 2) enough "what's going on here" from the team that was ahead. The game Saturday had both. 

It reminded TB of something former men's basketball coach Bill Carmody used to say: Play hard, and good things will happen.  

Keep in mind, just two weeks earlier, Yale defeated Princeton by three — final score of 13-10.  The Yale win was a victory for the entire Ivy League, who for a long while Saturday seemed to be heading to double blowouts (Harvard lost 52-7 to Villanova).

Moving indoors, yesterday was Game Day for the two Princeton basketball teams. The men played in the Jersey Jam at the arena in Trenton, falling to St. Joe's 60-58.

Princeton is a work in progress, but there is time for that work to be done. The Ivy League season doesn't begin until after the New Year, and there are still five December games to be played, including Wednesday at 8 at Monmouth. 

Jackson Hicke, by the way, now has three straight 20-point games after having no 20-point nights in his first 53 career games. 

The Princeton women took down DePaul 71-41 in Jadwin Gym. Ashley Chea had 22 points in the win, while Skye Belker had 15 of her own. 

The Tiger defense held DePaul to 23.1 percent shooting from the field and 20 percent from three. Princeton scored six seconds into the game, and there was never a tie or lead change after that. 

Princeton also had 13 blocked shots in the game. That's one off the program single-game record, set against Yale in 2011. 

Next up will be another Game Day tomorrow night against Seton Hall in Jadwin Gym. 

And, remember, it's also going to be Game Day for every Princeton team. 

TAGD is 24 hours away.  

Have A Great Thanksgiving

The Princeton men's water polo team won its fifth straight conference championship this past weekend, and in doing so the Tigers accomplished two things.

First, they advanced to the NCAA tournament, where they will play second-seeded UCLA on Dec. 5 in the quarterfinals. The entire event, by the way, is being held at Stanford.

Second, they put Joanna Dwyer into a somewhat strange situation. Dwyer, as you might remember, is leaving Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications to go to the University of Southern California. In fact, TB isn't sure which of those two actually employs her right now. 

Joanna has been the men's water polo contact here, and she will also be the contact there as well. USC enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed. 

How cool would it be for her if the two make the final? 

Also, following up on what TigerBlog wrote yesterday about how the easiest Player of the Week decision ever was the one that honored Tiger men's hockey player Kai Daniels, the news that Josh Robinson was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year was also hardly a shocking development. 

Robinson was a five-time Ivy Rookie of the Week in a season in which he set program records for receptions (46) and receiving yards (569) for freshmen. 

As for today, remember that you can watch the Princeton women's basketball team at Rhode Island this afternoon at 1 on ESPN+. Rhode Island enters the game 6-1, with only a loss to Rutgers and most recently a win over No. 16 North Carolina State. Both of those games ended up with scores of 68-63, which TB probably finds more interesting than you do. 

Princeton is 5-1 on the year, with only a loss to unbeaten and sixth-ranked Maryland. If you're wondering (and you're probably not), the last time Princeton played a game that ended up 68-63 was last year in the NCAA tournament, when the Tigers fell to Iowa State by that score. There have been five games in Princeton women's basketball history that have ended up 68-63, and the Tigers are 1-4 in those games — with a 2009 win over Columbia. 

That's enough of that, no? 

And of course, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. If you see these guys, give them sanctuary. 

 Lastly, TigerBlog has included these thoughts on the holiday almost every year, and he offers them again:

As holidays go, you can't do much better than Thanksgiving. It's got it all, really: a huge meal (with turkey, no less), football, family, history (dates back to 1621), start of a four-day weekend for most people, leftovers. It's even a secular holiday, so every American can dive right in, regardless of religion.
 
The Lions and the Cowboys, obviously, always play at home on Thanksgiving, and the NFL has now added a third game (maybe a little too much). Beyond watching football, how many out there have played their own Thanksgiving football games, all of which, by the way, are named "the Turkey Bowl?"

The holiday may lag behind Christmas in terms of great Hollywood movies, and "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is no match for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Still, there are some great moments in movies and TV shows around Thanksgiving.

Rocky and Adrian had their first date on Thanksgiving – "To you it's Thanksgiving; to me it's Thursday," Rocky said romantically – as did Meadow and Jackie Jr. on "The Sopranos" (it didn't quite work out as well as it did for Rocky and Adrian). "Everybody Loves Raymond" had two pretty good Thanksgiving episodes, the one where Marie makes a low-fat dinner and the one where Debra makes fish instead of turkey. As an aside, TigerBlog's Aunt Regina once made Cornish game hens instead of turkey, so he knows how they all felt. And of course, there was the Thanksgiving episode of "Cheers," which has the big food fight at the end.

The Woody Allen movie "Hannah and Her Sisters" starts and ends on two different Thanksgivings. "Miracle on 34th Street" is a Christmas movie, but it does start with the Thanksgiving parade in New York City.

And of course, there is the best of all Thanksgiving movies: "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." It'll make you laugh a lot and cry a little, and it ends on Thanksgiving.

TB wishes everyone a great holiday and hopes that maybe you take a few minutes to think about what you really are thankful for these days.

 

Players Of The Week

TigerBlog had his surgery yesterday for his melanoma. 

Everything went well — except for the fact that he now has to use a walker for a week. If that doesn't make you feel old, there was this from the physical therapy person: "We find that OLDER patients prefer the walker to the crutches."

Even worse than that? She's right. The walker is so much easier. 

TB can joke about all this because the skin cancer was caught early from a regular bi-annual checkup with Minnie The Dermatologist. He will repeat this: If you don't have your own Minnie, go find one and make an appointment. Getting in to see the dermatologist is not easy. Call TODAY. 

Remember last week's tribute to TB's late friend Chuck Sullivan? He died of melanoma at 54.  

Also, if you're a woman under 30 who spends time in the sun — say, possibly a college athlete — you're in a very high risk group. TB told every member of the field hockey team multiple times to make sure she goes. He's telling you too. 

As he wrote when this first happened, he would never have guessed that the small freckle on his foot was problematic, let alone life threatening. Let your Minnie figure that part out.  

Okay, hopefully you got the message.

And with that, there was yesterday's news that Kai Daniels was the ECAC Forward of the Week. At least, TB assumes he was. He didn't bother to check. 

Who else could it be? Ah, yes. It was Daniels.

Uhhhhh Ya Think?

6️⃣ goals in a weekend, including 5️⃣ in one game, will get you @ecachockey Forward of the Week presented by @bluebirdhotels!

Congrats, KD! pic.twitter.com/DawOIULyCc

— Princeton Men's Ice Hockey (@princetonhockey) November 24, 2025

You read that right. Daniels had six goals this past weekend, including five against St. Lawrence Friday night to be the first NCAA player with that many in a game since 2011. 

He then followed that up with the game-winner Saturday night against Clarkson. Player of the Week? Very much so. 

Who is Kai Daniels? He is a junior from Whistler, British Columbia whose cousin Kieran Lubin played football at Princeton and whose uncle Joe Lubin played squash at Princeton. He also had 11 goals in 52 career games prior to this weekend, when he had six in two. 

His six goals came on just nine shots. TigerBlog doesn't know a ton about hockey, but that seems pretty good. Daniels was 2 for 17 on the season before he went off this weekend. 

It's way too early to look at the ECAC standings, so TB instead will look at the upcoming schedule, which has the Tigers at Bowling Green Friday and Saturday, a trip that presumably includes a team Thanksgiving event. 

Meanwhile, speaking of Princeton athletes who won Player of the Week, there was also Skye Belker of the women's basketball team. This one also was pretty much obvious.  

From the release on goprincetontigers.com: You can read the entire story HERE.

Belker averaged 19.3 points per game in the Tigers' 3-0 week, shooting 19-of-33 overall (.576) while going 9-of-14 from deep (.643). She also sank all 11 free throws and averaged 4.3 assists per contest.

TigerBlog knows a lot about basketball stats. Those are really good ones.

Belker put up 27 of her points in a 100-93 win over Penn State in a game played in the Bahamas. Talk about heating up.

Wait, 100-93 for a Carla Berube team? That's a rarity.

It was the third time in Princeton women's basketball history that the team reached 100 points. The other two came in a 107-44 win over Wagner in 2016 and a 104-33 win over Portland State in the 31-1 season of 2014-15.

This time, the Tigers needed pretty much every single one of those 100 points.  

By the way, do you know what the halftime score was in that game? How about 38-34 Tigers. That means that Princeton put up 66 in the second half alone, shooting 8 for 10 from three in the last two quarters. 

Next up for Princeton is a trip to Rhode Island for a game with a 1 pm tip tomorrow. If you're unable to put weight on your foot and don't really want to use your walker, then that's perfectly timed. 

One more time — call your dermatologist.  

Through The Tears, Many Reasons To Smile

 

There were tears flowing freely from Olivia Caponiti's eyes, and on this day, there would only be two options. 

Tears, or euphoria. There would be no middle ground, not with these stakes, not with this margin for error. 

For one team, there would be the sheer, unimaginable joy of winning the NCAA field hockey championship. For the other team, there would be the sheer, unimaginable agony of having come sooooo close to the big prize. 

In the end, it was Northwestern, who cashed in a penalty corner in the second overtime for a 2-1 win, who got to experience the joy. And that left Princeton with only one available emotion, and as such, hence the tears. 

They didn't form only in the eyes of Olivia Caponiti, of course. The finality of such a loss in such a situation is brutal, and pretty much everyone in a Princeton uniform had the same reaction as Caponiti. 

It's just that Caponiti was standing closest to TigerBlog near the Princeton bench afterwards, and her tears were the first ones TB saw. 

He wanted to say something to make it better. He wanted to tell her that she had played a remarkable game in the Tiger goal, that there was no way that the game would have gone as long as it did without her. He wanted to tell her that she had made some extraordinary saves, the kind that only the elite of the elite would make.

Liv says no again and now has seven saves. We're off to the second 10-minute OT. A goal means the NCAA championship; no goal in 10 more min means a shootout to decide it.

👀 https://t.co/c3pRMcmSxi (ESPNU) pic.twitter.com/YSTDGaHnwU

— Princeton FH (@TigerFH) November 23, 2025

He wanted to tell her that, as a junior, she'd be back next year. He wanted to tell her that she had gone from a two-year backup to one of the best goalies in the country, and that this glorious run to late November would have never happened without her, both in the cage and everywhere else she was as part of this team. 

There was no team gathering where her voice, her laugh, didn't rise about the din. There was no team member who, or even season-long observer, who didn't feel better about things when Caponiti was around. 

Of course, in the moment, none of that would have made any difference to her. Or to any of the other Tigers. 

It'll take some time, actually. And when it does, what will stick out are moments that put them in position to have it hurt this badly. 

TigerBlog had a front row seat for all of it. He saw first-hand how a team can gel and go from a win-some, lose-some 4-3 start to the season that included a home loss to Harvard on Sept. 26 that essentially meant the Ivy League championship to a team that learned how to win and did so 14 straight times until yesterday. 

Along the way, there were two wins over Harvard — a team that went 19-0 against the rest of Division I — including in the Ivy tournament final and then the NCAA semifinals. There were countless wins over the top of Division I, including a 3-2 regular-season win at Northwestern that is the Wildcats' only defeat in their last 27 games. 

Could the Tigers repeat that? 

Oh, did they come close. They led 1-0 after three, scoring with two minutes to go when Beth Yeager scored her 59th and final goal as a Tiger, fittingly on a drag flick penalty corner shot. Through it all, Northwestern continued to pressure Princeton's defense in a way that no other team could this year 

Princeton allowed only 13 shots in its first three NCAA games. Northwestern threw 16 at Caponiti and her defense; the only other game where the opponent had more shots was the first meeting with Northwestern, where the Wildcats had 18. 

You cannot defend any better than Princeton did this weekend. The Tigers wiped out Harvard, allowing five shots and no goals in the 2-0 semifinal win. This time, Princeton kept Northwestern  — the third-highest scoring team in Division I — off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter, when the game was tied off one of the 10 penalty corners. It was another penalty corner that won it in the second overtime. 

What can you say about Princeton's defense? Ottilie Sykes might as well have been a roadblock. The same is true of freshman Gabriella Anderson. And sophomore Clem Houlden. And freshman Tabby Vaughan. 

They were ferocious, limiting Northwestern's swarming offense. Oh, and then there was Ella Cashman, a junior. 

Does it get tougher? She tore her ACL, completely, in the Ivy tournament final. She missed the first two NCAA games. There was no way she was missing the Final Four, and she didn't. Somehow, Cashman and athletic trainer Jade Hennessy pieced her together just enough to play about half of each game this weekend. And play well. 

Princeton started four freshmen and four sophomores. It's a young team with an incredibly bright future. And a present of which they should all be incredibly proud.

Yesterday afternoon, that didn't really matter much in the brutal moment when the ball hit the back of the cage to end it. 

You wanted to be the team in the dogpile on the blue turf at Duke. 

Instead, you were the team whose tears fell to that turf. 

In the moment, no words would help. In the long run? 

They'll be as proud of themselves as TigerBlog is of them. Thanks for the front row seat.

You are one amazing team.  

Smile

Okay, it's a very busy weekend. 

TigerBlog jumps right in ...

* * *

There was an error (since corrected) here yesterday. No, it wasn't that Bill Belichick really did take a picture with Princeton associate head field hockey coach Dina Rizzo. He stiffed her, as TB reported.

The error was that today's NCAA semifinal game between Princeton and Harvard at Duke does not appear to be available on ESPN+, only on ESPNU. It's streamable HERE, though you need an ESPNU account to be able to access it.  

TB apologizes for the mistake.  

The winner of Princeton-Harvard will face the winner of the second semifinal, between North Carolina and Northwestern, in Sunday's championship game at 1. 

Last night was the Final Four banquet, which gathered the four teams who are competing this weekend. It was a very nice event, the calm before the coming storm of the weekend, which will end with an NCAA title for one of those four teams. 

TigerBlog, for his part, broke out his Class of 1965 gear for the occasion:

By the way, that's TB with Rizzo and athletic trainer Jade Hennessy. TigerBlog was honored to be in the picture and would take a picture with Rizzo any time. 

And as a follow-up to the story of that one North Carolina head coach who did not opt to let a Princetonian get a picture taken with him, TigerBlog approached Tar Heel field hockey coach Erin Matson to see if she would take a picture with him. Was it a UNC thing? 

The answer? 

"Of course," she said. That's two UNC head coaches who've jumped at the chance to get a picture with TigerBlog. 

* * * 

As for the game today, it's the third meeting of the season between the teams, and each has a win in the first two. Harvard took down Princeton 3-1 in Princeton back on Sept. 26, but Princeton has not lost since, rolling up 13 straight wins, including a 2-1 win over Harvard in the Ivy League tournament final at Harvard two Sundays ago. 

You can read all about the game in TB's "A to Z" HERE, and he'll give you some highlights:

* Princeton has started four freshmen and four sophomores in its two NCAA tournament wins
* Princeton has not trailed at any point during its 13-game winning streak
* the team who scores first is 19-1 in Princeton's 20 games 
* Harvard has only trailed during four games this season and was the last unbeaten team in Division I
* Princeton allows only seven shots per game and has held Harvard to 14 in the two games
* Harvard has scored four goals on 14 shots in two games against Princeton and averages 15.2 shots per game

If ever there has seemed to be a 50-50 matchup in an NCAA semifinal game, this is it.  

* * *

The men's soccer team found out its opponent for Sunday's second round NCAA tournament game. The third-seeded Tigers will face Duke, who defeated FDU 1-0 yesterday afternoon, interestingly, in Durham as well. 

The goal came on a penalty kick in the final minute by the way. Apparently it was a good call, but the ref needs to be really sure to award it there. 

So now Duke gets to make the same 482-mile bus ride that the Princeton field hockey team did, assuming it's the same difference from Duke to Princeton as it is Princeton to Duke. The regular NCAA tournament rule is that the organization will pay for flights for teams beyond 400 miles from the game site, but because of all the delays of late, it was moved to 500 miles. 

Hmmm. What is 500-482? The answer is "a long bus ride."

Princeton is the No. 3 seed in the men's soccer tournament. The down side of getting a first-round bye is that your first opponent will have just won a game and by definition will have some momentum. The plus side is that you have extra rest and, you know, you've earned the right to play at home for everything you've done all season.  

The game will be Sunday at 4 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium.  

* * *

The women's basketball team is in the Bahamas for games tomorrow against Penn State and Sunday against Maryland-Eastern Shore. 

TB has never been to the Bahamas. He hears it's nice. Going there is not on his bucket list. You want to know what is? 

Princeton head coach Carla Berube was recently on a podcast in which she mentioned her love of karaoke. You can see for yourself at around the 14:40 mark: 

After hearing that, TB texted Berube the video of his rendition of "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" during field hockey Bus Karaoke a few weeks ago. Berube texted him back that she'd like to do a duet, to which TB said that it had vaulted to No. 1 on his bucket list. 

* * *

The Ivy League women's volleyball tournament will be in Dillon Gym this weekend, beginning today with the semifinals between No. 1 Princeton and No. 4 Brown at 4, followed by No. 2 Cornell and No. 3 Yale at 7. 

The winners meet tomorrow at 6 for the Ivy League's automatic NCAA tournament bid. No matter what happens at Dillon this weekend, Princeton is the outright Ivy League champion for 2025. 

The All-Ivy team that was announced this week had Princeton's Sydney Draper as the Player of the Year. There were seven first-team All-Ivy selections, and all seven will be in Dillon this weekend — including Princeton's Draper and Valerie Nutakor.  

* * * 

Beyond those events, it's another busy weekend, including the final football game of the season. The Tigers will be at Penn tomorrow, with kickoff at 1 at Franklin Field. It's always good to end a season with a win.

The NCAA cross country championships are tomorrow, in Missouri. The Princeton men won the Mid-Atlantic Regional last weekend to qualify as a team and enter the event ranked 18th in the country. A Top 20 finish would sound good. 

The full schedule for the weekend's more-than 30 events is HERE.