After playing its first four games in the comfort of Roberts Stadium, the women’s soccer team started a five-game road trip this weekend with a visit out West to compete in the UCLA Soccer Classic in Los Angeles.
Senior Matija Pecotic of the men's tennis team won the main singles draw of the Farnsworth Invitational and teamed with sophomore Zack McCourt to top the doubles event as well. Meanwhile, the men’s golf team finished seventh of 16 teams this weekend at the McLaughlin Invitational, a three-round tournament hosted by St. John’s.
Saturday afternoon the field hockey team extended its undefeated streak to five wins when the Tigers (6-0 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) defeated Ivy League rival Dartmouth 4-1 in their opening conference game. This loss marks the fourth in a row for the Big Green (1-4, 0-1), which was the only conference opponent to beat the Tigers last season. Sunday afternoon, the Tigers hosted Delaware (3-6) and claimed their sixth straight win of the season with a decisive 10-2 victory.
After the final whistle sounded on the sprint football team’s 2012 opener against Mansfield on Friday, the Tigers had a reason to be optimistic. Sure, they had come out on the wrong side of a 23-16 score, extending a 13-year losing streak against varsity teams. But the hosts had led briefly in the first quarter, which they hadn’t done in a game since 2009, and finished with more total yards than their opponent, which they hadn’t accomplished since 2004. All in all, they looked like a different team than in years past.
Expectations for the 2012 Princeton football team are understandably low. The Tigers are coming off consecutive 1-9 seasons and have not won a game by more than three points since 2009. So when Princeton fell on the road to No. 13 Lehigh, 17-14, there were no surprises. Or were there?
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The football team came into its season opener with a host of unanswered questions. How would it replace reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year Chuck Dibilio? Who would start under center? Could they manage to beat heavily-favored Lehigh? The answer to the final question was no — the Tigers fell to the Mountain Hawks, 17-14 — but they put on a solid performance despite those uncertainties.
Four teams have gone had a stretch similar to 2010-11 for the Tigers, with two consecutive seasons at 1-6 or worse in league play; four finished above .500 in the conference the following year. How did these teams turn their fortunes around so quickly, and what would it look like if Princeton did the same this year?
Competition is the name of the game coming out of training camp. After going 1-9 in each of the past two seasons, the football team is looking to finally come out with a winning season. To determine this season’s starting quarterback, head coach Bob Surace ’90 and the Tigers aim to take advantage of an in-house contest to bring out the best in their developing roster.
The football team plays a 10-game schedule every year, with three non-conference games and seven Ivy League opponents. Here’s our breakdown of Princeton’s 2012 slate.
The women’s volleyball team is poised to make another run at the Ivy League title this season. The Tigers’ record is a bit misleading at 2-4, as it includes two heartbreaking five-game losses to Siena, each by a two-point margin. It also does not include their victory last weekend over the University of Montreal, a match that does not count for NCAA standings. Despite losing two All-Ivy selections in Cathryn Quinn and Hillary Ford, Princeton has reloaded its roster with five freshmen.
Uncertainty looms as the men’s soccer team embarks on its 2012 season. Ready to return to the level of play it reached two years ago when head coach Jim Barlow ’91 coached the team all the way to the NCAA tournament’s first round, the Tigers scheduled a series of challenging opponents to open the season.
Coming off yet another disappointing season, it is clear that the football team must improve in many different ways in order to become relevant in the Ivy League again. The defense is looking to prove that it able to step up to the task.
When a team takes a shade under twice as many shots as its opponents over a 17-game season, you might guess that the team has at the very least tasted significant success, if not challenged for a trophy. The women’s soccer team, however, struggled to a 6-10-1 overall record last year, with strong overall performances undone by poor finishes.
The men’s water polo team faces a difficult task this season, trying to repeat last year’s magic. After winning the Eastern championship and then the third place match against University of California, San Diego in the NCAA Championships, this team will definitely have big shoes to fill and high expectations to meet. Yet, this team is poised for a great run and has the chance to top last year’s success.
See the results of our Ivy League sportswriters football poll, which surveyed representatives of all eight student newspapers, including The Daily Princetonian.
Doug Davis ’12 may still be playing for Tigers, but he will be taking the court far, far away from Jadwin Gymnasium and the Orange Bubble. Davis and Devona Allgood ’12 have become the latest Princeton basketball alumni to take their talents to Europe. Over the summer, Davis signed with Walter Tigers Tubingen in Tubingen, Germany, while Allgood joined Telge Basket in Sodertalje, Sweden.
Diana Matheson ’08 has always been the playmaker, able to find and set up one of her teammates with a perfectly positioned ball for a shot on goal. So when Matheson found herself with the ball at the top of the penalty box, with a bronze medal on the line, she passed it just beyond two converging defenders to teammate Sophie Schmidt. As the script was drawn up, the ball would find the back of the net and Matheson would add yet another assist to her record while her teammate got the goal and glory. But not this time. Instead, France's goalie blocked the shot — directly to an attacking Matheson, who instinctively volleyed it into the open net.
Maya Lawrence '02 spent two unforgettable weeks in London this summer, and not just because she and junior Susie Scanlan, along with two other American fencers, took bronze in the women’s team epee.
Princeton has displayed its dominance in the world of rowing at the Olympics at the past 12 Games, and London was no exception. Of the 15 current and former Princetonians who competed at the 2012 Olympics, eight were rowers. Even more remarkably, four Tiger rowers walked away with medals at this year’s Games.
When Dave Blatt '81 was hired in 2006 as the first non-Russian head coach of the Russian national basketball team, he found he had to earn respect as a head coach. As a Jewish American who has lived in Israel for much of his adult life, winning people over was a challenge. But through a self-described desire to bridge cultural divides through sports, Blatt turned around a struggling basketball team and won the respect of a nation while leading Russia to a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
