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Vol. LXIII, No. 47
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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Vol. LXIII, No. 47
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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(Photo by Stephen Goldsmith)
ROGER AND OUT: Princeton University football head coach Roger Hughes ponders his options in recent action. Last Sunday, Hughes was dismissed from his post after a decade at the helm of the program. Hughes went 47-52 in his tenure, highlighted by a 16-4 run in 2005-06 that saw the Tigers go 9-1 in ’06 and share the Ivy League crown with Yale. Since that championship campaign, however, Princeton has posted three successive 4-6 seasons. |
Last weekend started out on a high note for Princeton University football head coach Roger Hughes and his squad.
Finishing a disappointing season in style, Princeton won 23-11 at Dartmouth in its season finale.
Hughes, a former offensive coordinator for Dartmouth, lauded his players for the character they displayed as they went 3-1 in the final four games after a 1-5 start.
With her Princeton University field hockey trailing undefeated and top-ranked Maryland 3-1 at halftime of the national semifinals last Friday, Tiger head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn had a simple message for her players.
“I told them that you have to be brave in the offensive third and defensive third and just go for it,” said Holmes-Winn.
After spotting Maryland another tally in the first 1:24 of the second half in the game played at Kentner Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Tigers roared back, scoring three unanswered goals with Kaitlin Donovan getting one and Katie Reinprecht notching a pair.
But fourth-ranked Princeton ran out of gas after knotting the game at 4-4, yielding three straight goals on the way to a 7-5 loss to the Terps, who ended up falling 3-2 to North Carolina in the NCAA title game.
For Princeton University cross country star Liz Costello, the NCAA cross country championship meet in 2007 marked a nadir in her superb running career.
Although she entered the meet as the Tigers’ top-ranked runner, Costello, then a sophomore, passed out briefly on the course and straggled home in 209th place.
Coming into this fall, senior midfielder Devin Muntz had experienced plenty of frustration during his career with the Princeton University men’s soccer team.
Although Muntz had earned All-Ivy League recognition in each of his first three seasons, his efforts weren’t enough to keep the Tigers from posting an overall record of 16-27-8 during that stretch.
Midway through this fall, it looked like Muntz was heading for a fourth straight losing campaign as the Tigers fell 4-2 at Brown to drop to 4-5-1.
But with Muntz providing leadership and sparkling two-way play in the midfield, the Tigers caught fire down the stretch, going 5-0-2 to force its way into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2001 and earn an opening round home game against visiting Bucknell last Thursday.
As the Princeton High boys’ soccer team warmed up for its Group III state semifinal clash against Moorestown last week, PHS head coach Wayne Sutcliffe had a propitious chat with junior midfielder John Marsh.
“It’s kind of funny; he and I were talking before the game and I had a good feeling that he would get a goal,” recalled Sutcliffe, who faced his brother, Mike, the longtime Moorestown coach, across the sidelines.
With the teams knotted at 0-0 some 15 minutes into the second half, Sutcliffe’s premonition came true as Marsh battled for a loose ball and banged it home to give PHS a 1-0 lead.