Princeton University Athletics
Double Play
April 23, 2002 | General
April 23, 2002
Not bad for a weekend's work. Princeton won three more Ivy League championships this past weekend, as the men's golf and softball teams both won outright title and the women's lacrosse team clinched at least a share.
The three newest winners run Princeton's total of Ivy League championships for the 2001-02 academic to 11. It marks the ninth straight year and 14th time overall that Princeton has reached double figures in Ivy titles. By contrast, every other Ivy school combined has done so three times.
With seven Ivy sports still to decide their champion this spring, Princeton needs three more to tie its own record, set in 2000 and tied last year, of 14 Ivy titles in an academic year.
The softball title was the first by Princeton since 1996, when current head coach Maureen Davies was the No. 1 pitcher for the Tigers. Davies, who went 8-6 in the Ivy League a year ago, saw her team finish its Ivy season 13-1. The clincher came in style, as Melissa Finley homered twice, drove in six runs and was the winning pitcher in a 6-1 win over Brown in Game 2 of a doubleheader. Moments later, word came that Harvard had lost its second league game of the year, giving Princeton the championship.
The Tigers earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, a 48-team event that begins in mid-May at eight sites around the country. Bids will be announced May 12.
Also earning an automatic bid to an NCAA regional was the men's golf team, which won its third straight Ivy title led by medalist James Milam. The Tigers will play in the NCAA tournament in mid-May as well.
The women's lacrosse team is looking every bit the No. 1 team in the country after running its winning streak to 13 with a 15-3 win over Dartmouth, a team that Princeton had not defeated in the regular season since 1996. The Tigers are 6-0 in the Ivy League and would win the outright title with a win at Brown Saturday. Regardless of that game, Princeton is assured of a bid to the NCAA tournament, whose pairings are announced May 5. The first rounds, on campus sites, begin May 9. The Final Four is at Loyola.
Princeton also has a big non-league game this Wednesday against seven-time defending NCAA champion Maryland. That game can be heard at www.goprincetontigers.com and seen this weekend on tape delay on CN8 TV.
The men's lacrosse team took a huge step forward last Saturday with its 12-7 win over Cornell, who could have clinched the Ivy title with a win. Instead, Princeton broke open a tight game with five goals in a 4:16 span of the third quarter.
The victory leaves Princeton, Cornell and Brown all tied with one league loss. The Tigers finish their regular season with games at Dartmouth this weekend (radio at 1040 AM, WJHR/www.goprincetontigers.com) and at Brown next weekend (radio at WHWH AM 1350/www.goprincetontigers.com).
Cornell and Brown are very much alive, however, and Yale is still alive mathematically (though a Princeton win over Dartmouth would eliminate Yale). Cornell and Brown play this weekend in Ithaca. Some scenarios:
* Princeton wins over Dartmouth and Brown would give Princeton no worse than a share of the Ivy title and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament
* a Brown win against Cornell and a Princeton win against Dartmouth would eliminate Yale and Cornell and set up essentially an Ivy League championship game the following weekend in Providence as the winner of the Princeton-Brown game would then win the outright Ivy championship
* a Cornell win over Brown coupled with a Princeton loss in either of its last two games would give the Big Red the outright title
* a Brown win over Cornell, a Princeton win over Brown and a Dartmouth win over Princeton would leave Princeton, Cornell, Brown and Yale in a four-way tie for the league title. In that case, Princeton would get the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament (first tiebreaker of head-to-head would eliminate Cornell and Yale, second tiebreaker of head-to-head would favor Princeton).
* there could be a four-way tie (see above) but not a three-way tie
Princeton, the winner of six NCAA championships in the last 10 years, is ranked fourth in this week's USILA poll. Should the Tigers fall short of the automatic bid, they would very much be in the running for one of the tournament's six at-large bids. Six conferences (ECAC, Ivy, Patriot, Great Western, America East and MAAC) get automatic bids (UMass from the ECAC and Fairfield from the Great Western have already clinched berths).
That leaves six spots for at-large teams. Princeton has lost to John Hopkins (No. 1), Syracuse (No. 2), Virginia (No. 3) and Yale (No. 13) and has beaten Cornell (No. 6), Duke (No. 7), Hofstra (No. 9) and Penn (No. 15).
The Ivy League baseball race is a little less complicated. Princeton is 11-5 with four games remaining, all against last-place Cornell (2-10) next weekend (May 4 home, May 5 at Cornell). Columbia (7-5) and Penn (8-8) are both alive mathematically. Princeton's magic number over Columbia is five (meaning any combination of Princeton wins and Columbia losses totalling five would eliminate the Lions), and the magic number over Penn is two.
The winner of the Gehrig Division will play the winner of the Rolfe Division (currently led by Harvard) in the best-of-three Ivy playoffs May 11-12. The winner advances to the NCAA tournament
Ivy League championships in men's and women's track will be decided at the Heptagonal championships next month at Navy. There are also league titles to be decided next month at the Eastern Sprints in men's heavyweight and lightweight crew and women's open crew.