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Vol. LXIV, No. 10
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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Vol. LXIV, No. 10
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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(Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction)
SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT: Princeton University women’s basketball head coach Courtney Banghart shouts out instructions in a recent game. Banghart’s message has been getting through as Princeton improved 25-2 overall and 13-0 in Ivy League play after sweeping Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend. The wins gave Princeton the Ivy title and extended the team’s winning streak to a program-best 20. The Tigers were slated to end regular season play by hosting Penn on March 9. Next Monday, the Tigers will learn where they are headed in the NCAA women’s hoops tournament as they make their first-ever appearance in the tourney. |
It is a five-hour bus ride from Harvard University to Princeton.
But for the Princeton University women’s basketball team last Saturday night, the long trek back from Cambridge turned into a party on wheels.
Earlier that evening, the Tigers topped Harvard 78-66 to clinch outright the Ivy League title and earn the program’s first-ever bid to the NCAA tournament.
It was a situation that might’ve overwhelmed many a lacrosse team.
Featuring a line-up dotted with new faces and playing in its second game under a new head coach, the Princeton University men’s lacrosse team faced undefeated Johns Hopkins before a hostile crowd of 19,742 in M and T Bank Stadium in Baltimore at the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic.
The Tigers, though, showed from the opening face-off that they weren’t going to be intimidated by the surroundings, matching fifth-ranked Hopkins goal for goal as the first quarter ended in a 4-4 stalemate.
As Julie Barry and her teammates on the Princeton High girls’ basketball team faced Hopewell Valley in its last game before starting play in the state tournament, they were looking to build some positive momentum.
After starting 8-8 to clinch the program’s first spot in the state tourney since the 1990s, PHS had fallen into a rut.
“We were in a slump,” said junior guard Barry. “We had a few losses in a row.”
With Barry chipping in six points, PHS edged HoVal 34-30 to break a six-game losing slide and finally get its ninth win.
As his Princeton High girls’ ice hockey team took the bus to the Hill School to face Princeton Day School in the WIHLMA (Women’s Ice Hockey League of the Mid-Atlantic) playoffs, Christian Herzog dipped into his bag of motivational tricks.
“As soon as we got on the bus, I said ‘I realize you are friends with the PDS girls but today they are your worst enemies,’” recalled PHS head coach Herzog, reminding his team that it was the last chance for its seven seniors to beat PDS.
To help fire up his players even further on the ride, Herzog cued up the DVD of “Miracle,” the film that tells the inspirational story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team and its improbable run to the gold medal.
Kat Smithson was a bit uneasy about her Princeton Day School girls’ hockey team before the season started.
“It was nerve-wracking at the beginning because we didn’t have a goalie,” said PDS head coach Smithson. “We had the players but I didn’t know if we were going to put up the wins.”
Sophomore Lucy Marquez stepped up to the challenge of playing goalie and emerged as an inspiration to the team.