History at Stake as No. 16 Princeton Hosts Columbia in Dillon on ESPNU, Cornell at Jadwin This Weekend

Can the Tigers be the team to end the streak?

That's the question for Princeton Sunday afternoon against No. 17 Cornell in Jadwin Gym, but first, the 16th-ranked Tigers will have a national TV date with Columbia in Dillon.

Saturday vs. Columbia, 4 p.m. | ESPNU | Dillon Gym | Free Admission
Sunday vs. No. 17 Cornell, 1 p.m. | ESPN+ | Jadwin Gym | Tickets

Princeton stands 4-4 overall and 2-0 in the Ivy League after last weekend's road sweep of Harvard and Brown. The Tigers will take a six-match series winning streak into this year's meeting with Columbia, which is 4-3 and will head to Drexel Friday at 7 p.m. and Penn Saturday at 11:30 a.m. before heading back north to take on Princeton.

Mike Couzens and Anthony Robles will be on the ESPNU call for the Columbia match.

Though the Lions have no Intermat-ranked wrestlers, Joe Manchio at 125 is ranked 28th nationally by the NCAA coaches panel and 29th by TrackWrestling, and Matt Kazimir at 141 is ranked 28th by the coaches panel and 27th by TrackWrestling.

Princeton has three top-five Intermat-ranked wrestlers, with Patrick Glory third at 125, Quincy Monday fourth at 157, and Patrick Brucki third at 197.

Should the Tigers get past Columbia, the chance to make history will come Sunday in Jadwin in a battle of national top-20 teams.

When Cornell last lost an Ivy League match on Feb. 2, 2002 to Penn, the aforementioned Brucki was three years old, Monday was two and Glory was a couple months away from turning two. All were more than a decade from being born when Princeton last won a dual match against Cornell, in 1986. The Big Red have won 32 straight over the Tigers since then, and five of those wins are on Cornell's list of 11 largest shutouts, including a 56-0 win in 2007, Chris Ayres' first year on the job. The 2006, 2008 and 2009 Cornell wins are also among the five on that list, and Princeton didn't score a point against Cornell from 2005-09.

Things have changed since. While Cornell shut the Tigers out as recently as 2013, Princeton fell just 23-16 in 2016 and 21-12 in 2017, the first times since 2002 that Princeton broke 10 points against the Big Red.

The Tigers have plenty of company within the Ivy League in coming up short when trying to solve Cornell. The streak that dates back to that 2002 loss is currently at 91 matches, a number Cornell will aim to extend to 92 with its Saturday 2 p.m. visit to Penn.

Cornell counts fourth-ranked Chas Tucker at 133 and fourth-ranked Ben Darmstadt at 197 as Intermat-ranked wrestlers, setting up a possible national top-five battle between Darmstadt and Brucki at 197.

A weekend sweep would also clinch Princeton at least a share of the Ivy League title, which would be the program's first since 1986.

Following the Columbia-Cornell weekend, Princeton will host Penn and Drexel next Saturday at Dillon Gym in a 12 p.m./2 p.m. free-admission doubleheader.

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