Princeton University Athletics
Seeing Crimson
October 21, 2003 | General
Oct. 21, 2003
Who needs Game 6 of the World Series? The Saturday sports calendar in Boston will be just fine, even without the Game 6 that might have been.
With the possibility of Red Sox-Marlins (or Cubs, for that matter) long gone, among the events taking its place will be four critical Ivy League games involving Ivy League rivals Princeton and Harvard. All four of these games will take place within 100 yards of Harvard Stadium.
The games begin at 11 a.m., when the schools meet in women's soccer. Football and field hockey both begin at noon, while men's soccer follows at 1:30.
Independently of each other, both schools put the same fan poll question on their Web sites, asking fans to vote for how many games each school will win. Not surprisingly, as of Tuesday morning, 64% of the fans on Princeton's site thought the Tigers would win at least three, while 67% on the Harvard site though Harvard would win at least three.
The game with the most direct impact on the Ivy League race will be the field hockey game. Princeton and Harvard are the only undefeated teams in the league, and both played in the NCAA tournament a year ago. Princeton is ranked eighth nationally this week; Harvard is 15th.
Penn has one league loss, which came 3-2 to Harvard in early September. The Tigers still have to play at Penn Nov. 7 in the regular season finale, which is also Princeton's only remaining Ivy League game after Harvard. Even with a win over Harvard, Princeton almost certainly cannot win the championship - which would be its 10th straight - until that game, but Harvard can pretty much salt away the title Saturday. The Crimson do have two Ivy games left after Princeton, but they are against Dartmouth and Columbia, both of whom enter the weekend 0-4 in the league.
The women's soccer team is facing Harvard - and history. The Tigers are 1-7 against the Crimson since Julie Shackford became head coach, and they have been outscored 21-3 in that time. On the plus side, Princeton's lone win came in their last visit to Cambridge, a 2-1 win in overtime. The winning goal was scored by non other than Esmeralda Negron, then a freshman and now a junior, as well as the reigning Ivy League Player of the Week and the league leader in points and goals.
Princeton is ranked 24th this week in women's soccer, but that doesn't help the Tigers in the Ivy standings. Princeton is 9-1-2 heading to Cambridge, but the lone loss is to Dartmouth, currently 4-0-0 in the Ivy League. Princeton is 3-1-0 in the league, followed by Harvard (1-1-2 in the league, 5-4-4 overall), tied with Brown for third.
While the Crimson have a long road to the league title, they do have the benefit of games left with both Princeton and Dartmouth. Should Harvard sweep those games, they'd be right back in the race. After Harvard, Princeton still has games remaining with Cornell and Penn, both tied for fifth, while Dartmouth still has to play Columbia (currently in eighth place), Harvard and Cornell.
The Ivy League has two unbeaten men's soccer teams, Brown and Cornell, and they meet Saturday night in Ithaca. Princeton enters this weekend 1-1-1 in the league, 4-4-3 overall, while Harvard is 5-4-3 overall but just 0-2-1 in the league.
The Harvard game marks the beginning of the defining stretch of the Princeton men's soccer season. The Tigers still play Cornell (ranked fourth in the New York region), Yale (third place, ranked sixth in the New England region) and Penn (ranked 10th in the Mid-Atlantic Region) in the league, as well as two major games outside the league against eighth-ranked Fairleigh Dickinson (ranked first in the Mid-Atlantic Region) and 15th-ranked Rutgers (ranked second in the Mid-Atlantic Region).
In other words, Princeton has plenty of opportunities left to make an impact on the regional rankings and work itself into position for an NCAA bid.
The football game matches 1-4 Princeton against undefeated and 20th ranked Harvard. Forget the 1-4, though; the key number for Princeton is its Ivy record, 1-1. With a game against Cornell next week before back-to-back games with Penn and Yale, Princeton can get right back into the league race with a win over Harvard.
Clearly the Tigers are owed some good luck against the Crimson. Harvard has won the last seven meetings in the series, which includes one one-point game, two two-point games and two seven-point games, including last year's 24-17 game at Princeton Stadium.
In addition to the four games at Harvard, there is also a key volleyball weekend at Princeton as Cornell is at Dillon Gym Friday (7) and Columbia is in on Saturday (4).
Cornell enters the weekend 15-1 overall and 6-0 in the Ivy League, tied with defending champ Penn for first place. Princeton is 4-1 in the league (11-5 overall) with a loss to Penn. Columbia is winless overall and in the league.
The Ivy League volleyball champion is determined by a double round-robin format.
The Princeton Chase crew races will be held Sunday on Lake Carnegie. The men's golf and men's and women's tennis teams all compete on the road.