Princeton University Athletics
Weekend Update
May 01, 2003 | General
May 1, 2003
If you thought last weekend was wild in Princeton athletics, welcome to this weekend.
Again five Princeton teams can win Ivy League titles this weekend, and again a sixth can take a major step in that direction. This weekend adds a few extra wrinkles, however.
Let's start with the easy stuff. The men's and women's track teams compete at the Heptagonal championships at Yale Saturday and Sunday. The Heptagonal team totals, by the way, become the Ivy League standings.
Princeton will be in the hunt on the men's side; Cornell is a heavy favorite on the women's side.
The baseball team has four games remaining in its Ivy League regular season, all against Cornell (two here Friday, two at Cornell Sunday). Princeton is currently 12-4 in the Gehrig Division. Penn, which has completed its league schedule, is 12-8; Cornell is 8-8.
With one win in those four games, Princeton would clinch the division title for the sixth straight year and would earn the right to host the Ivy League championship series next weekend (best of three, two games May 10, a third May 11 if necessary). The Rolfe Division representative in that championship series will be either Harvard or Dartmouth, who play four times this weekend as well. Harvard is currently 9-7, while Dartmouth is 8-8. Harvard needs to win two of the four games to win the division; Dartmouth needs to win three of four.
Then there's the softball team. If you think you have a busy weekend, consider Maureen Barron's team.
The Tigers are 10-3 in the league, while Cornell is finished at 10-4. Princeton's only remaining league contest is the resumption of its suspended game against Brown from April 14. The Tigers led that game 8-5 in the top of the ninth with two out and a runner on first when the umpires called the game due to darkness. It will be resumed from that point.
Should Princeton win, it would win the outright Ivy League title and advance to the NCAA tournament. Should Brown win, Princeton and Cornell would be Ivy League co-champions and would have a best-of-three playoff for the NCAA tournament bid.
The Princeton-Brown game will be 10 a.m. Saturday. At the conclusion of that game, Princeton will drive back to New Jersey and play in the Princeton Invitational later Saturday afternoon against Rider.
Finally, there is lacrosse. Both the men and women are in similar situations as they head into their doubleheader at home Saturday against Brown (men at noon, women at 3; both games on WBUD 1260 AM and www.goprincetontigers.com).
The men are 4-1 in the league. Cornell is assured of at least a share of the league title after finishing its league season at 5-1. Dartmouth can get a piece of the league title Friday night when it hosts Harvard. Princeton can get a share of the title itself with a win Saturday. In the event of multiple winners, each tying team would be considered a league champion.
Should there be a two-way tie, then the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament would go to the winner of the head-to-head matchup. Cornell, which would have to be one of the teams in the tie, has lost to Princeton and beaten Dartmouth. Should there be a three-way tie, then head-to-head competition (the first criteria) and how each team did against the next team through the standings (the second criteria) would not break the deadlock, so the bid would be awarded by a random drawing conducted by Ivy League executive director Jeff Orleans. That drawing would be held Saturday at 7 via conference call.
That same call could also feature the women's random draw for the NCAA bid. Dartmouth and Yale have both finished their seasons at 6-1 in the leauge, including a Dartmouth win over Yale and a Yale win over Princeton. Should the Tigers defeat Brown, they too would be 6-1. In that scenario, the same situation as the men would be in place, with no way to determine the bid rather than random draw.
Orleans, by the way, could be doing two random draws for NCAA bids on the same call after doing none in his first 20 years at the Ivy League.
NCAA lacrosse bids will be announced Sunday night.
Princeton also has a full schedule of home crew races Saturday morning.