Princeton University Athletics
Tuesday TigerBlog - The Penultimate Weekend
February 03, 2026 | Tiger Blog
TigerBlog was in the Bubble Sunday morning for a men's lacrosse scrimmage.
One of the things about lacrosse that always makes TB smile is that after each game and the handshake line, you'll immediately see hugs and catch-ups from all the players on both teams who either played with or against each other in high school or club growing up. It's a staple of every game.
You can see an example of this yourself.
As for the Bubble, if you don't know, it sits over Powers Field from the end of the football season through the spring.
You can ask anyone who has ever been inside, and you'll get the same statement. When you are inside the Bubble, you cannot believe you are on the football field in the stadium. You'll get a 100 percent rate of response.
As ridiculous as it seems, the first Division I lacrosse games were played this past weekend. It was still January.
Perhaps because of the audacity of scheduling games outdoors in the Northeast in January, the weather was more conducive to sled dog racing than lacrosse. Remember when the lacrosse season didn't start until March 1?
If you're wondering, the Princeton men open their season a week from Saturday at home against Penn State. The Princeton women open their season the following Saturday at Loyola, on the same day the men are at Maryland.
Both teams are highly ranked heading into 2026. The men, in fact, are either No. 2 or No. 3 in every preseason poll, while the women are as high as No. 5.
The Princeton men's lacrosse season opener starts a few hours before the last game of the Princeton women's hockey team's regular season finale. That means that there are only four games left before the ECAC tournament begins.
The Tigers enter the penultimate (TB loves that word for some strange reason) weekend of the regular season in first place in the league standings with 41 points, three ahead of second-place Clarkson.
TB will get back to Princeton Hockey in a moment. First, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:
The earliest known use of the word "penultimate" is in the early 1500s. OED's earliest evidence for "penultimate" is from 1529, in a letter by Stephen Gardiner, theologian, administrator, and bishop of Winchester.
That's a long time ago.
Back at hockey, the Princeton men are home this coming Friday against Yale and Saturday against Brown, both at 7. The ECAC men's race still has four weekends left in the regular season, and Princeton is currently in fifth place, five points back of fourth-place Harvard.
The top four teams for both the men and women get a first-round bye and the host role for the quarterfinals in the ECAC tournament.
The Princeton women swept St. Lawrence (2-0) and Clarkson (6-1) this past weekend on the road. Had Clarkson defeated Princeton, then Princeton would be in second place now, not first.
Princeton scored two minutes into the game and three times in the first 16 minutes, including two that came shorthanded. It was 5-0 Tigers after two periods and then 6-0 midway through the third before Clarkson got on the board.
Once again it was a very big weekend for Tiger goalie Uma Corniea, who made a career-high 43 saves against Clarkson, one night after shutting out St. Lawrence with 30 saves. That's 73 saves and one goal allowed.
That's very, very, very, very good. Four very's.
It's a very, very, very long ride back from the St. Lawrence and Clarkson road trip. It's a very, very long ride on the Dartmouth/Harvard road trip that Princeton will now have to make this weekend.
That's one fewer "very."
Princeton will then host Yale and Brown to end the regular season.
The Division I NPI ratings (the ones that determine the NCAA tournament field) have five ECAC teams in the top 12, including Princeton at No. 8. The Tigers are ranked seventh in this week's USCHO.com poll.
Somehow, the women's hockey season is winding down. Or, is that just beginning?
It'll definitely extend beyond the regular season. After that? It could be a very exciting rest of the winter.
